The Book of Not So Common Prayer: A New Way to Pray, A New Way to Live

Moore (The Distance Between) does not flit or whisper: she helicopters, relating to prayer as some parents relate to their young, sure that if she monitors and exemplifies and explains clearly enough, she will prevail. Her sincere goal is to encourage others to follow her practice, modeled after Brother Lawrence, of being in communion with God intentionally throughout one's day. She devotes an hour a day, broken into quarters, to prayer. This practice has been transformative, she declares: "a lovely swirl of holy consciousness, repentance, gratitude, and substantive blessing." She breaks her text into ten parts, starting with telling her own story and including writing to God, hearing God, considering theology, and, most persuasively, examining the holy discipline of prayer. As she does in her fiction, Moore injects humor, sly as well as self-effacing (she has, she says, a "squirrelly brain"), as leaven to her finger-wagging love that would be guilt-inducing if it were not so right and helpful. The appendix offers a practical plan for group contemplative prayer. (June)