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Summary: the vulnerability of those who believe
Review: Anne Lamott has done a wonderful job of capturing a spiritual journey in a human and humble and truthful voice. This voice is what makes her story so identifiable. We can all relate to the daily, sometimes harrowing, sometimes mundane, challenges of life, the spiritual journey of searching for meaning, for a God who can relate to us. This is the journey you will find in this book....well written to boot.
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Summary: Entirely Expendable
Review: First of all let me state I'm a fan of Lamott and will continue to take an interest in everything she produces. But while Annie Lamott makes a very personal case for her faith and honestly depicts her experiences, I was not moved by this book as I was by BIRD BY BIRD, which, unencumbered by the "baggage" of religion, is filled with compassion, understanding and tenderness toward the human condition. TRAVELING MERCIES is much more self-indulgent, trite and unconsidered - okay if there's nothing else around to read, but hardly "essential reading"!
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Summary: We laughed, we cried...
Review: My women's sprirituality group read "Traveling Mercies" last fall and we loved it! Anne Lamott is a woman who writes about life, love, sprituality and God in a way that's inclusive and applicable to everyday living. Can't we all relate to the author's prayer to God the day her old Volkswagon breaks down in the middle of a storm, or the fight she has with her son in the morning and how she feels guilty all day until she can see him and apologize?Every member of my sprituality group was moved by this book, no matter our age, background or occupation. My only complaint was that the book ended too soon! Read this book, you'll love it!
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Summary: Thought provoking humor, "Can you believe it?"
Review: This book is a whole bunch of snapshots, excerpts, essays, and thoughts on life and faith. Anne Lamott is one interesting character with her dreadlocks, Christianity, hippie days, feminism, and belief that God may be a woman; and what great reflections on life. I love literature and authors from C.S. Lewis to Steve Martin. She's not anywhere near as profound as Lewis, nor nearly as slap-stick as Martin, but she may well fall somewhere between this odd couple. If there is any indication that I enjoyed this book, I just purchase her other work "Bird by Bird" and I am nothing less that ecstatic to receive it. It should be noted this book is not entirely linear, nor is it a "complete" story, yet the message is worthwhile and humorous throughout and insightful in many parts. If you want a better understanding of what a "normal" Christian might look like, or need to understand you aren't the only one with a hippie past this book will likely inspire you.
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Summary: Pilgrim's Progress for the Modern Neurotic
Review: This book is a gem. Anne Lamott is a Christian who has the courage to be a real human being. . ..a rare combination in today's church, and sorely needed. Pick this book up for yourself, get a copy for your friends. Lamott's honesty and faith will shock and inspire you to love God, by way of learning how to love yourself.
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Summary: Wonderfully written
Review: I was wary of this book when I saw the title, but found that it was not an in your face account of spirituality in which religion is shoved down the reader's throat, but instead an honest look at one woman's struggles to find God. I found the book inspiring. I also found LaMott's prose to be some of the best I have ever read. I read each sentence slowly and carefully, not wanting to miss a single word. I also disagree with the reviewer who said gen-xers would not enjoy this book. I am 28 and think it is one of the best books I have ever read.
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Summary: a nimble writer
Review: What is outstanding about this book is Anne Lamott's writing skill. She is a nimble writer who draws amazing analogies and parables through her stories of life as the daughter of a famous author, a single mother, and a very human human-being. Her stories capture you - I read this book in one day... could not put it down. She speaks rawly about her exploration of truth, and her daily struggles in life... I LOVE IT! It was a National Bestseller, and I had read a review in the Hartford Courant, then added it to my "BUY" list and then finally purchased it in the Spring, 2000. Though Anne Lamott & I differ in political views, and in our approach to a shared faith, I have already passed it on, and recommended it to many... Anne Lamott is also the author of the very popular and necessary reader on the art of writing, called "Bird by Bird," which my mother read in one sitting.
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Summary: I really wanted to like this.
Review: I really wanted to like this book. I had heard good things about it and read lots of reviews of people liking it. To me though - it seemed like it was just a look of reflections on the author's life without much direction. There seemed to be very little about her faith and how that had helped. I apparently just missed the point.
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Summary: Writer mistakes cloying self-absorption with spirituality
Review: I have read and enjoyed other nonfiction by Anne Lamott (she certainly is no writer of fiction), but I found this book shallow, poorly written, and exploitative. The writer is endlessly amused with herself and so narcissistic as to believe that God exists mainly to do what she refuses to, which is take care of herself and her son while she hammers out her essays. We learn, for example, that she---middle-class, educated, and capable of self-support---accepts money from the fixed-income women at her church and calls this the work of God. We're treated to an essay "on forgiveness" in which she learns to forgive the woman who rescues her son when Lamott forgets to pick him up at school or teach him to read. Oh, right, and then Lamott has to forgive herself for not realizing sooner that she's the one who's been the schmuck. And this was worth an essay? I'm sorry, but this collection left me feeling completely uncharitable, the opposite of what I expected from a book on spirituality.
Rating: 
Summary: Refreshingly honest
Review: I read this book over the course of a vacation and found it intriguing. Intriguing in the sense that I have never read a book about the quest for spirituality written from her viewpoint. Her thoughts are at once bawdy and poignant, helping us to realize that we too have a place in the quest for God. Too many books of the spiritual genre reflect on the bad times in ones life as past - as a struggle that is over having achieved nirvana. Anne Lamott's writing underscores the fact that the journey towards spirituality is an ungoing process, and a process that is worthy of all.
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