![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Almost-Everything-612x1030.jpg\")
<\/a>This little book from Anne Lamott is great medicine when things seem bleak and life is getting you down.<\/p>\nI popped the audio version into my car\u2019s CD player one day not long ago when the news was full of horrible, hate-inspired violence and the airwaves were bristling with alarmist political ads. OK, Anne Lamott, I thought: See if you can give me any reason to hope.<\/p>\n
She did.<\/p>\n
I had never read anything by Lamott, who is a novelist as well the author of books that might be called spiritual or inspirational. My sister had talked about liking her books, but I didn\u2019t really know much about her.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m also wary of self-help, shallow popular religion and feel-good pep talks.<\/p>\n
I need not have worried. For the many people who are already fans of Anne Lamott, I\u2019ll just point out that this brief book, written for the era of Trump in America, is here, offering a much-needed dose of what Lamott has to offer.<\/p>\n
For others who might have missed her, I\u2019ll say this book will not only cheer you, it will also make you want to go find some of her earlier works.<\/p>\n
Anne Lamott recorded the audio version herself, so listening to it is a lot like having an enjoyable conversation with a friend \u2013 a lively, irreverent, funny friend who seems to have many of the same anxieties, insecurities and doubts that I do, but who finds reasons to keep going \u2013 with a zest for life \u2013 nonetheless.<\/p>\n
Like a lunchtime conversation, this book jumps from subject to subject and doesn\u2019t deal with any of them in great depth. You leave the table feeling much better, but it\u2019s hard to pinpoint any one, profound thing she said that made a difference.<\/p>\n
Lamott says she set out to write down all that she\u2019s learned that\u2019s worth passing on to her grandson.<\/p>\n
One thing she\u2019s obviously learned is that \u201churt, loss and disaster\u201d are common in life.\u00a0 Definitely no holier-than-thou Christian, she speaks frankly and often with wry humor about her own troubled past and shortcomings. But a believing, churchgoing Christian she is, even if a left-wing, latter-day hippie who recognizes that not everyone\u2019s idea of God \u2013 or whatever supreme force there might be \u2013 is the same.<\/p>\n
In her very personal, honest, peripatetic musings, she touches on all sorts of topics: body image and eating disorders; family dynamics, birth order and the ways we never outgrow our childhood selves; the futility of trying to \u201cfix\u201d other people\u2026. The anxieties she was grappling with as she wrote included a devastating fire in California, where she lives, and her fear each morning that she would learn upon waking that the U.S. had bombed North Korea.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll truth really is paradox,\u201d she writes. Her stories show us that life is full of change, so when things seem bleak, that\u2019s all the more reason to keep going. She also reminds us that there are nuggets of hope and happiness even when things are bad. Acknowledging \u00a0that much in life is\u00a0 hard, she offers not the brand of faith that promises if you just pray enough, everything will go your way, but the faith that says life is worth living despite very real problems and disappointments. She finds joy in teaching the diverse children in her Sunday school class and in visiting the church garden with an elderly friend.<\/p>\n
When I finished Almost Everything<\/em>, I found myself not only more hopeful but also wishing I could visit with Lamott again in a week or so. I\u2019ll have to look for some of her earlier books. Meanwhile, remembering her stories about how doing something nice for someone is good for the soul, I ordered a copy of this new book to be delivered to the sister who\u2019s been telling me about Anne Lamott for years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson ALMOST EVERYTHING: Notes on Hope. By Anne Lamott. Read by the author. Penguin Audio. 3\u00bd hours; 3 CDs. $34. This little book from Anne Lamott is great medicine when things seem bleak and life is getting you down. I popped the audio version into my car\u2019s CD player one day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,10,23],"tags":[1068,820,1070,1069],"class_list":["post-2394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-books","category-contemporary-nonfiction","category-religion-contemporary-nonfiction","tag-anne-lamott","tag-audio-books","tag-hope","tag-spirituality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2396,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2394\/revisions\/2396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}