Even now, during our culture’s most fractured time, Lamott remains a paragon of seemingly irreconcilable attributes and beliefs. A devoted grandmother and recovering drug addict, Jesus-loving Sunday school teacher and Guggenheim fellow, 12-stepping TED talker and small-town writer whose book sales currently top 4 million, Lamott is that rare bird, a progressive stalwart beloved in coastal cities and flyover hamlets alike ... Few writers can produce 12 advice books worth reading. But like its predecessors, Dusk Night Dawn delivers prose that satisfies literary as well as spiritual tastes ... Dispensing counsel cloaked in story, Lamott spins her self-deprecating ruminations into manna for the majority.
Still, she manages to face life with her characteristic offbeat faith and hilarious insights ... We all need to march together and share our stories, Lamott observes, because in the end truth, science, and love almost always win. A message of reason and hope we all need to hear.
[Dusk, Night, Dawn] is digestible and uplifting, conceived and packaged for the chaotic times we are facing. Although touching on a few broadly exterior topics (climate change), it mainly focuses on the human interior, Lamott’s speciality, with a particular emphasis on forgiveness of ourselves and others, acceptance, and unconditional love ... Lamott’s observations are particularly well-suited for readers living in an age of distraction, hooked on screens and turning to meditation and self-care to regain awareness ... It is precisely now that readers crave something unique, nourishing, and illuminating — which we know Lamott can provide. I’m sad to say that Dusk, Night, Dawn isn’t quite it.
Another helping of pop philosophy from the prolific writer ... the book addresses such topics as forgiveness, repentance, climate change, and more. Though the book will appeal to her longtime fans, the essays are marred by observations that are trite or just plain obvious ... For Lamott devotees, file alongside the aforementioned books; others can take a pass. A simplistic attempt at hope in troubled times.
Bestseller Lamott explores the relationships between personal anxieties and larger social concerns in these quiet, often darkly humorous reflections ... Concentrating on being more intentional and focusing on small changes in one’s personal life, she writes, allows hope to grow and to serve as the first step to larger societal changes. Lamott argues that people too often block themselves from love through perfectionism, self-loathing, cowardice, and the fear of being vulnerable with others ... Her answer: kindness, humility, words of love, and stories of when the worst seemed possible, but it turned out okay. Lamott’s many fans will enjoy this ode to relishing small things.
