"Some days there seems to be little reason for hope, in our families, cities, and world," admits essayist Anne Lamott (Hallelujah Anyway; Bird by Bird). "Well, except for almost everything." That exception is the impetus for Lamott's essay collection Almost Everything: Notes on Hope. Lamott, who has made a career out of facing the darkness and then looking for the pinpricks of light, brings her pithy, self-deprecating humor to bear on such topics as a friend's alcoholism, the power of stories to redeem and transform and the ways grace sneaks in: without warning and against all expectations.
In brief, wry chapters on topics such as "Puzzles" (not the 500-piece kind), "Humans 101" and "Famblies," Lamott explores the complicated truth of "the mess and the tenderness"--the ordinary human condition, shot through with despair and joy. This takes the form, at times, of sticking with friends and family members through illness and death; learning to treat ourselves and our bodies with kindness; and struggling not to give in to hate in a fear-filled political climate. It also can mean glancing out the window at a bird, laughing (kindly) at ourselves and simply being willing to be amazed.
On the days when "it doesn't feel like the light is making a lot of progress," Lamott also recognizes that "love has bridged the high-rises of despair we were about to fall between." Fortunately for Lamott's readers, this book, like her others, is both a celebration of that bridge and a gentle but insistent call to keep building. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams