""Love is our only hope," Anne Lamott writes in this perceptive new book. "It is not always the easiest choice, but it is always the right one, the noble path, the way home to safety, no matter how bleak the future looks." In Somehow: Thoughts on Love, Lamott explores the transformative power that love has in our lives: how it surprises us, forces us to confront uncomfortable truths, reminds us of our humanity, and guides us forward. "Love just won't be pinned down," she says. "It is in our very atmosphere" and lies at the heart of who we are. We are, Lamott says, creatures of love. In each chapter of Somehow, Lamott refracts all the colors of the spectrum. She explores the unexpected love for a partner later in life. The bruised (and bruising) love for a child who disappoints, even frightens. The sustaining love among a group of sinners, for a community in transition, in the wider world. The lessons she underscores are that love enlightens as it educates, comforts as it energizes, sustains as it surprises. Somehow is Anne Lamott's twentieth book, and in it she draws from her own life and experience to delineate the intimate and elemental ways that love buttresses us in the face of despair as it galvanizes us to believe that tomorrow will be better than today. Full of the compassion and humanity that have made Lamott beloved by millions of readers, Somehow is classic Anne Lamott: funny, warm, and wise"-- - (Baker & Taylor)

Full of her trademark compassion and humanity, the New York Times best-selling explores the transformative power of love in our lives: how it surprises us, forces us to confront uncomfortable truths, reminds us of our humanity and guides us forward. - (Baker & Taylor)

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

One of Publishers Weekly’s Best Religion Books of 2024

“Anne Lamott is my Oprah.” —Chicago Tribune

From the bestselling author of Dusk, Night, Dawn and Help, Thanks, Wow, a joyful celebration of love

“Love is our only hope,” Anne Lamott writes in this perceptive new book. “It is not always the easiest choice, but it is always the right one, the noble path, the way home to safety, no matter how bleak the future looks.”

In Somehow: Thoughts on Love, Lamott explores the transformative power that love has in our lives: how it surprises us, forces us to confront uncomfortable truths, reminds us of our humanity, and guides us forward. “Love just won't be pinned down,” she says. “It is in our very atmosphere” and lies at the heart of who we are. We are, Lamott says, creatures of love.

In each chapter of Somehow, Lamott refracts all the colors of the spectrum. She explores the unexpected love for a partner later in life. The bruised (and bruising) love for a child who disappoints, even frightens. The sustaining love among a group of sinners, for a community in transition, in the wider world. The lessons she underscores are that love enlightens as it educates, comforts as it energizes, sustains as it surprises. 

Somehow is Anne Lamott’s twentieth book, and in it she draws from her own life and experience to delineate the intimate and elemental ways that love buttresses us in the face of despair as it galvanizes us to believe that tomorrow will be better than today. Full of the compassion and humanity that have made Lamott beloved by millions of readers, Somehow is classic Anne Lamott: funny, warm, and wise. - (Penguin Putnam)

Anne Lamott is the author of twenty books, including the New York Times bestsellers Help, Thanks, Wow; Dusk, Night, Dawn; Traveling Mercies; and Bird by Bird, as well as seven novels. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an inductee to the California Hall of Fame, she lives in Northern California with her family. - (Penguin Putnam)

Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* "Even in the darkest and most devastating times, love is nearby if you know what to look for," writes Lamott (Dusk Night Dawn, 2019). Lamott senses love in myriad ways, including sharing necessities with people who are unhoused, forgiving others, and finding yourself within your family. Lamott mulls over love as she digs through boxes of memories in the attic or walks the streets of Cuba with her husband. She finds love in the community, in solitude, in dreams, in her Sunday school students and her AA meetings. Her innate honesty allows her to share her vulnerabilities and laugh at her own sometimes over-the-top attempts to find and share love. Her journey to sobriety and that of her son are told painfully but candidly and with gratitude. Lamott freely admits her faults and isn't afraid to call out others for their actions. But it is all done with such clarity, feeling, and goodness that readers will find themselves laughing out loud and fighting back tears. Ultimately, this is a testimony to love and hope in an often painful world. Lamott's many readers are loyal, and this will be an easy sell. But pass it on, too, to people who may not even realize that they are searching for ways to connect with and love others. Copyright 2024 Booklist Reviews.

Library Journal Reviews

Beloved and best-selling author Lamott (Dusk, Night, Dawn) offers a joyful, feel-good read that explores the power of love—romantic, platonic, and familial—in people's lives, with her usual grace, humor, and insight. With a 150K-copy first printing. Prepub Alert. Copyright 2023 Library Journal

Library Journal Reviews

Lamott returns with another hymnal of perambulating parables, this time ruminating on love. Her anecdotes are often repetitive from book to book—readers of her other nonfiction may experience déjà vu—but perhaps that is the point: love and faith are iterative, a cumulation of life experiences constantly refined by the passing years. Through all of these books and years, Lamott's theme remains: "I felt very exposed and a little unhinged, and it was good." Readers become Lamott fans because of her thematic constancy in balancing the sacred and the profane. This title follows the same pattern. Revisiting a transgression that bubbled back to the surface, her past multifaceted mea culpa, and what to do about it now, Lamott writes about how the past is just under the surface, waiting to be stirred up, held to the light, and reexamined; she is a master in doing exactly that. VERDICT Recommended. Readers already familiar with Lamott's nonfiction work will find comfort in her familiar touchstone topics of faith, family, and recovery viewed through the lens of love and aging. Readers new to Lamott might want to start with her earlier works such as Help Thanks Wow or Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith.—Rita Baladad