Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved

Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER â€¢Â â€œA meditation on sense-making when thereâ€™s no sense to be made, on letting go when we canâ€™t hold on, and on being unafraid even when weâ€™re terrified.â€â€”Lucy Kalanithi

â€œBelongs on the shelf alongside other terrific books about this difficult subject, like Paul Kalanithiâ€™s When Breath Becomes Air and Atul Gawandeâ€™s Being Mortal.â€â€”Bill Gates

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLE

Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School with a modest Christian upbringing, but she specializes in the study of the prosperity gospel, a creed that sees fortune as a blessing from God and misfortune as a mark of Godâ€™s disapproval. At thirty-five, everything in her life seems to point toward â€œblessing.â€ She is thriving in her job, married to her high school sweetheart, and loves life with her newborn son.

Then she is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer.

The prospect of her own mortality forces Kate to realize that she has been tacitly subscribing to the prosperity gospel, living with the conviction that she can control the shape of her life with â€œa surge of determination.â€ Even as this type of Christianity celebrates the American can-do spirit, it implies that if you â€œcanâ€™t doâ€ and succumb to illness or misfortune, you are a failure. Kate is very sick, and no amount of positive thinking will shrink her tumors. What does it mean to die, she wonders, in a society that insists everything happens for a reason? Kate is stripped of this certainty only to discover that without it, life is hard but beautiful in a way it never has been before.

Frank and funny, dark and wise, Kate Bowler pulls the reader deeply into her life in an account she populates affectionately with a colorful, often hilarious retinue of friends, mega-church preachers, relatives, and doctors. Everything Happens for a Reason tells her story, offering up her irreverent, hard-won observations on dying and the ways it has taught her to live.

Praise for Everything Happens for a Reason
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â€œI fell hard and fast for Kate Bowler. Her writing is naked, elegant, and grippingâ€”sheâ€™s like a Christian Joan Didion. I left Kateâ€™s story feeling more present, more grateful, and a hell of a lot less alone. And what else is art for?â€â€”Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love Warrior and president of Together Rising
Country USA
Brand Random House Trade Paperbacks
Manufacturer Random House Trade Paperbacks
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber 0399592083_used
Color White
ReleaseDate 2019-06-04
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780399592089

Country	USA
Brand	Random House Trade Paperbacks
Manufacturer	Random House Trade Paperbacks
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	0399592083_used
Color	White
ReleaseDate	2019-06-04
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780399592089

Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved

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