Book notes: Writer Anne Lamott will speak at Whitworth
Like many writers, Anne Lamott is different things to different readers.
She’s a novelist (“Hard Laughter,” “Blue Shoe”) and a writer of nonfiction (“Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”).
Her topics have been varied, ranging from living as a single mother to getting pregnant to becoming sober, and her style is marked as much by her sense of humor as her liberal views.
It’s as a Christian thinker, though, that Lamott will visit Whitworth College on Saturday.
Lamott, who will appear at 7:30 p.m. in the college’s Cowles Auditorium, has written three books on her religious beliefs – the most recent being “Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith” (Riverhead, 272 pages, $24.95), which reached bookstores in March.
Her previous two were 1999’s “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith” and 2005’s “Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith.”
“Even at her most serious, she never takes herself or her spirituality too seriously,” wrote a reviewer for The New York Times. “Lamott is a narrator who has relished and soaked up the details of her existence, equally of mirth and devastation, spirit and grief, and spilled them onto her pages.”
“Anne Lamott is walking proof that a person can be both reverent and irreverent in the same lifetime,” wrote a reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle. “Sometimes even in the same breath.”
Lamott, who lives in Marin County, Calif., north of San Francisco, is a regular contributor to the online magazine Salon.com.
Her appearance at Whitworth, which is co-sponsored by Spokane Community College, is free and open to the public. For further information, call (509) 777-1000.
Student writers
Whitworth College student contributors to Script, the school’s literary journal, will read their works at 4 p.m. Friday in Whitworth’s Westminster Courtyard.
Script, which has been around for 20 years, is Whitworth’s only student-produced literary journal.
The readings are free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served immediately afterward.
Call (509) 777-3253.
Taking flak
Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 movie “Full Metal Jacket,” which was based on Gus Hasford’s novel “The Short-Timers,” will screen at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in the downtown branch of the Spokane Public Library, 906 W. Main St.
The event, free and open to the public, is part of an ongoing Kubrick film series.
The series continues on June 13 with Kubrick’s horror film “The Shining,” which stars Jack Nicholson. Then it shifts to Nicholson vehicles: “Easy Rider” on July 11 and “Five Easy Pieces” on Aug. 8.
Call (509) 444-5336.
Book club update
As you can see from my story on Page 3 of this section, the May read of The Spokesman-Review Book Club is Patrick F. McManus’ mystery novel “The Blight Way.”
We’re going to go in a different direction in June. That’s when we’ll tackle “Earthly Meditations: New and Selected Poems,” by Idaho poet Robert Wrigley.
Following that, July’s read will be “Buffalo Medicine,” a mystery by Coeur d’Alene/Lolo, Mont. writer April Christofferson. And in August, we’ll read Olympia writer Thom Jones’ short-story collection “The Pugilist at Rest.”
You also can access the S-R Book Club by going online at www.spokesmanreview.com/interactive/bookclub. Once there, you can even provide your own reviews.
Book talk
“Auntie’s Morning Book Group (“The Worst Hard Time,” by Timothy Egan), 11 a.m. Tuesday, Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington. Call (509) 838-0206.
“Auntie’s Evening Book Group (“Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World,” by Tracy Kidder), 7 p.m. Tuesday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
“Literary Freedom Book Group (“The Lighthouse,” by P.D. James), 1 p.m. Saturday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
The reader board
“Linda Tiger (“Touch of Prayer”), 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
“Nada (“Mary Magdalene: a Mystical Journey”), 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
“Kathleen Flenniken (“Famous”), Peter Pereira (“What’s Written on the Body”), readings, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Auntie’s Bookstore.