Anne Lamott

An exploration of mercy, its elusive presence, and why people ignore or embrace it shares advice for forging deeper self-understanding and how to pursue an honest, meaningful life that involves kindness to others.

Despair and uncertainty surround us, but even when life is at its bleakest-- when we are, as Lamott puts it, "doomed, stunned, exhausted, and over-caffeinated"-- the seeds of rejuvenation are at hand. In this book, she calls for each of us to rediscover the nuggets of hope and wisdom that are buried within us that can make life sweeter than we ever imagined. -- adapted from back cover "I am stockpiling antibiotics for the apocalypse, even as I await...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An essential volume for generations of writers young and old. The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of this modern classic will continue to spark creative minds for years to come. Anne Lamott is "a warm, generous, and hilarious guide through the writer’s world and its treacherous swamps" (Los Angeles Times). 

“Superb writing advice…. Hilarious, helpful, and provocative.”...

Lamott explores how we find meaning and peace when life lurches out of balance; where we start again after personal and public devastation; how we recapture wholeness after loss; and how we locate our true identities in this frazzled age. We begin, Lamott says, by collecting the ripped shreds of our emotional and spiritual fabric and sewing them back together, one stitch at a time.

The story of a teenage tennis star in a small town in northern California. She is Rosie, 13, and she has problems. Her mother is a recovering alcoholic still beset by grief over the early death of her first husband, Rosie's tennis partner is experimenting with sex and Rosie is attracted to a middle-aged man.

Wherever you look, there's trouble and wonder, pain and beauty, restoration and darkness--sometimes all at once. Yet amid the confusion, if you look carefully, in nature or in the kitchen, in ordinariness or in mystery, beyond the emotion muck we all slog through, you'll find it eventually: a path, some light to see by, moments of insight, courage, or buoyancy. In other words, grace. Lamott knows and lives by this belief, most of the time. In these...

"[E]xplores the personal beliefs, hidden traumas, and social pressures that shape not just women's feelings about their bodies, but also their confidence, choices, and relationships."--From dust jacket flap.

In this collection of essays, women talk about their hair-- and in doing so, offer up reflections and revelations about family, race, religion, ritual, culture, motherhood, politics, and celebrity. Layered into these essays you'll find surprises, insights, hilarity, and the resonance of common experience. Many things in life matter more than hair, but few bring as much pleasure as a really great hairdo.