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PLAN B: Further Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott Riverhead, 336 pp.; $24.95

Anne Lamott won a host of fans with Operating Instructions, her hysterical memoir about the first year of her son's life. Then came the frank, funny, and fiercely honest Traveling Mercies, in which she described her own love affair with Jesus (a love that completely surprised her more than anybody). Sprinkled throughout both are her fiercely leftist, now fiercely anti-Bush politics. Her latest volume of nonfiction, Plan B (available for the first time in paperback), has garnered mixed reviews.

She's just as funny as ever, but some readers have complained that she spends too much time venting her political spleen. But even folks who don't share Lamott's sentiments about the current presidential administration will find both humor and insight in Plan B.

Lamott offers wisdom about parenting. (Her son is now a teen, and Lamott is in her early 50s—she says she's finally figured out why people are supposed to have kids young: "so that by the time your child is in his teens, one of you is stable some of the time, and you the mother are not racked with back pain and Alzheimer's.") There's wisdom about prayer. ("'Help' is a prayer that is always answered.") She offers wisdom about getting through the narrow places in life, about hope, about resting in God's mystery, and about trusting God's justice. You don't have to agree with Lamott's politics to agree with her about that.

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Lamott's Plan B: Further Thought on Faith, newly published in paperback, is available from ChristianBook.com and other book retailers.

Winner also reviewed the book for The New York Times.

Christianity Todayinterviewed Lamott in 2003.

Lamott spoke at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral on Sunday. Audio of her comments is available at the Cathedral's website.

Lamott discussed her book NPR's Day to Day in March.

Cindy Crosby reviewed the book for BookReporter.com.

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November 2006, Vol. 50, No. 11