Glad to Be Human: Adventures in Optimism (Positive Thinking Book, for Fans of Learned Optimism, Anne Lamott, or Elizabeth Gilbert)

This warm and thoughtful book is arranged in six sections: Domesticities, Idiosyncracies, Botanies, Vitalities, Technologies, and Sympathies, ending with The Pushcart Prize-winning essay “Glad to Be Human.” It varies in tempo, from short succinct pieces to longer essays, and is punctuated throughout with pithy one-liners. (“We’re not made of matter, but of mattering.”)

Join O’Garden in her kitchen or her garden to hear her concise, often funny, observations. Travel with her to Paris, Budapest, New York, Jerusalem to experience the beauty and pain of witness. Sit beside her in the Alzheimer’s unit as she finds a new way of sharing with her sister. Explore the natural world with her, trekking the deep caverns of Carlsbad, investigating the wide reaches of the Everglades and gazing out through our starry galaxy itself. Celebrate our common pleasures, our common sorrows, our shared humanity.