I just finished reading this book: Almost Everything: Notes on Hope by Anne Lamott. Now, I am thinking to myself, Yes, I definitely like Anne Lamott’s writings. Her essays are poetic, full of wisdom and truth, where she uses a lot of metaphors to connect with her readers.
In this book and in her writings, it seems as though she has taken her bow and arrow, aimed it right into the hearts of her readers, and hit them deep into their souls. Like a skillful violinist, she has used her words like notes to bring out the most heart-wrenching tune and melody out of her instrument. She has dissected all the ordinary incidents and moments of her everyday life, so that she can show us different dimensions and different layers of life being viewed from every direction and the very deep. When she talks of her own shortcomings, it seems as though we are actually examining our own shortcomings and comparing our own scars with hers. The language she has used is quite down to earth, humorous, and, at times, the reader easily loses her way amongst all her random deep and philosophical thoughts — which, by the way, have very little to do with hope, contrary to what the title of this book is. At times, she may have accidentally stumbled onto hope while she is examining life, love, politics, family, and her own pain, joy, and experiences.
Reading through this book, I did not necessarily find hope, and that’s okay too. I think what social media has done to us these days is that it has buried us under an avalanche of positive words of wisdom coming and reaching to us from every place and every direction. We are actually all maxed out. Our tanks are all full. Nevertheless, I found this book a complete pleasure to read.
Anne Lamott was born in 1954 in San Francisco, CA. Anne Lamott, the daughter of the writer Kenneth Lamott, grew up in Marin County, north of San Francisco. She attended Goycher College in Maryland on a tennis scholarship. There, she wrote for the school newspaper, but dropped out after two years and returned to San Francisco. After a brief stint writing for WomenSports magazine, she began working on short pieces. The diagnosis of her father’s brain cancer prompted her to write her first novel, Hard Laughter, published by Viking in 1980. She has since written several more novels and works of nonfiction.As Lamott told The Dallas Morning News: “I try to write the books I would love to come upon, that are honest, concerned with real lives, human hearts, spiritual transformation, families, secrets, wonder, craziness—and that can make me laugh. When I am reading a book like this, I feel rich and profoundly relieved to be in the presence of someone who will share the truth with me, and throw the lights on a little, and I try to write these kinds of books. Books, for me, are medicine
As Lamott told The Dallas Morning News: “I try to write the books I would love to come upon, that are honest, concerned with real lives, human hearts, spiritual transformation, families, secrets, wonder, craziness—and that can make me laugh. When I am reading a book like this, I feel rich and profoundly relieved to be in the presence of someone who will share the truth with me, and throw the lights on a little, and I try to write these kinds of books. Books, for me, are medicine
https://www.thoughtco.com/profile-of-anne-lamott-851775
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