In a book club and starting to plan your reads for next year? Check out our 2025 picks.

Anne Lamott Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott Biography

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.



This bio was last updated on 04/02/2024. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Interview

Anne Lamott talks about her books, her life as an alcoholic before being 'born again' and her view of God. She also discusses her writing, her involvement in her local church, and her son.

Anne Lamott freely admits that before she said "Yes" to Jesus, her life was a mess. In some ways it still is.

Her pets keep getting sick and dying. Her home office, where she has just packed up the manuscript of her latest novel -- a two-year project -- and mailed it off to her publisher, looks "kind of like a rummage sale." She is not sure where she stashed the curriculum for the confirmation class she is organizing for her 12-year-old son, Sam, and two other young people in the 100-member Presbyterian church where she is an elder. "I have it in the car, I think," she says, adding ruefully, "That's usually my battle cry -- I have it in the car, I think."

Standing in the back doorway of her cottage nestled among other smallish-size houses on a steep hillside in the San Francisco Bay-area town of Fairfax, California, Lamott greets Saturday afternoon visitors with a plaintive request for help. Her pet kitten died recently, and now Boo-Boots, her 16-year-old cat, is dying of leukemia and kidney failure. The cat needs an injection, and is lying on a towel on an ironing board in the bedroom.

"Do any of you have medical training?" Lamott asks the photographer and two journalists she is meeting for the first time. Of...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Books by this Author

Books by Anne Lamott at BookBrowse
Somehow jacket Imperfect Birds jacket Blue Shoe jacket Traveling Mercies jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Anne Lamott but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Douglas Abrams

    Douglas Abrams

    Douglas Abrams is the New York Times bestselling co-author of The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World with the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, the first book in the Global Icons Series. Douglas is also the founder... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Somehow

    Try:
    The Book of Hope
    by Douglas Abrams

  • Elizabeth Berg

    Elizabeth Berg

    Elizabeth Berg is the author of many bestselling novels, including Open House (an Oprah's Book Club selection), Talk Before Sleep, and The Year of Pleasures, as well as the short story collection The Day I Ate Whatever I... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Blue Shoe

    Try:
    Ordinary Life
    by Elizabeth Berg

We recommend 12 similar authors


Non-members can see 2 results. Become a member
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The Puzzle Box
    The Puzzle Box
    by Danielle Trussoni
    During the tumultuous last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, a 17-year-old emperor known as Meiji ...
  • Book Jacket
    Something, Not Nothing
    by Sarah Leavitt
    In 2020, after a lifetime of struggling with increasingly ill health, Sarah Leavitt's partner, ...
  • Book Jacket
    A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    by Raul Palma
    Raul Palma's debut novel A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens introduces Hugo Contreras, who came to the ...
  • Book Jacket
    The MANIAC
    by Benjamin Labatut
    The MANIAC by Benjamin Labatut is an ambitious work that falls squarely into the category of fiction...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

It was one of the worst speeches I ever heard ... when a simple apology was all that was required.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.