Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved
by Kate Bowler
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date Feb 06 2018 | Archive Date Apr 20 2018
SPCK | SPCK Publishing
Talking about this book? Use #EverythingHappensForAreasonAndOtherLiesIveLoved #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!
Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - 'A meditation on sense-making when there's no sense to be made, on letting go when we can't hold on, and on being unafraid even when we're terrified.' LUCY KALANITHI
'Belongs on the shelf alongside other terrific books about this difficult subject, like Paul Kalanithi's When Breath Becomes Air and Atul Gawande's Being Mortal.' BILL GATES
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLE
London-born Kate Bowler, a thirty-five year-old professor at the school of divinity at Duke, had finally had a baby with her childhood sweetheart when she began to feel jabbing pains in her stomach. She lost thirty pounds, guzzled antacid, and visited doctors for three months before she was finally diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer.
As Kate navigates the aftermath of her diagnosis, she pulls the reader into her life and her history – affectionately filled with a colourful retinue of friends, mega-church preachers, parents, and doctors – and shares her irreverent, laser-sharp reflections on faith, friendship, love, and death. She wonders why suffering makes her feel like a loser and explores the burden of positivity. Trying to relish the time she still has with her son and husband, she realizes she must cure her habit of ‘skipping to the end’ and planning the next move. An historian of the American Prosperity Gospel (the creed of the megachurches that promises believers a cure for tragedy, if they just want it badly enough) Kate finds that she craves these same 'outrageous certainties'. Why is it so hard to surrender when she knows there are no spiritual guarantees?
In Everything Happens for Reason we encounter one of the talented, courageous few who - like Paul Kalanithi - can articulate the grief we feel as we contemplate our own mortality.
A Note From the Publisher
• Paul Kalanithi's award-winning When Breath Becomes Air has sold over 175,000 copies in
the UK alone.
• Deeply touching yet revitalizing, and displaying a masterly use of irony, the book will also
draw in readers of volumes like Tom Lubbock's 'Until Further Notice, I Am Alive', Bryony
Gordon's 'Mad Girl', Matt Haig's 'Reasons to Stay Alive', and Ruby Wax's 'Frazzled'
• The author’s voice and strength of character will appeal to those who appreciate writers
such as Anne Lamott, Barbara Brown Taylor, Rowan Williams and Richard Rohr
• A fascinating read for those concerned with the prevalence of the Prosperity Gospel
• Coverage likely from online media such as Christian Today and Ship of Fools
Advance Praise
· Kate Bowler's memoir is a meditation on sense-making when there's no sense to be made, on letting go when we can't hold on, and on being unafraid even when we're terrified. And it happens to be hilarious. Above all, though, this is a love letter to life, and it's gorgeous. - Lucy Kalanithi, MD, FACP, Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine
· “I don’t remember why I opened Everything Happens for a Reason, but once I did, I fell hard and fast for Kate Bowler. Her writing is naked, elegant, and gripping—she’s like a Christian Joan Didion. Her spirit and perspective are so beautiful that halfway through- I closed the book, turned to my wife and said: ‘I have to call someone to find out how this ends. I need to know before I keep reading if she’s okay.’ I don’t think Kate wrote Everything Happens for a Reason to save anybody: she was just telling the truth about her life. Regardless, I left Kate’s story feeling more present, grateful, and a hell of a lot less alone. And what else is art for? Everything Happens for A Reason is art in its highest form—and Kate Bowler is a true artist—with the pen, and with her life.” - Glennon Doyle, author of the #1 NYT Bestseller Love Warrior and president of Together Rising
· This is a beautifully-written, intelligent,
soulful book. Kate’s story makes room for anger, for
love, for faith and despair, for prayer and silence . . . necessary reading for
all of us who
long to walk faithfully and honestly through the darkest and most desolate of
seasons. - Shauna Niequist, New York Times bestselling author of Present Over
Perfect and Bread
· Kate Bowler has stage 4 cancer and she faces
it with courage and questions. Does
everything happen for a reason? Is there a master plan? Kate comes to the
simplest
conclusion of all: “Life is beautiful. Life is hard.” Accepting these two
truths side-by-side can
change the way we live . . . A book for all of us who have sought meaning in
catastrophe
and needed a way to live on. - Abigail Thomas, author of A Three Dog Life
· The Kate you will come to know in this book
is 100% real: honest, brave, holy, ridiculous,
profane, hilarious, human - her fierce and beautiful words will make you . . .
long for
courage to tell the truth about your [own] life. - Amy K. Butler, Senior
Minister, The Riverside Church
· Throughout, the author delivers raw emotion, realistic description, and candid assessments… An inspiring story of finding faith—in God, in family, and in oneself—while walking close to the Valley of the Shadow of Death.” - Kirkus Reviews
Available Editions
| EDITION | Ebook |
| ISBN | 9780281079308 |
| PRICE | £15.99 (GBP) |
Readers who liked this book also liked:
Vanita Oelschlager
Health, Mind & Body, Nonfiction (Adult)
