WomanPrayers: Prayers by Women Throughout History and Around the World

A run-down of some of this book's contributors--which include Marianne Williamson, Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Hildegard of Bingen, Ammachi, and anonymous Celtic and Native American authors--suggests that its intended audience is women interested in New Age and feminist spirituality. It certainly succeeds in providing well-sifted, prayerful reading for its target market. The book's greatest strength is the pride of place it gives to poetry, eschewing sappy, written-for-the-moment prayers in favor of reflective poems from many different times and spiritual traditions. Rita Dove and Denise Levertov get their due; Anne Lamott offers a poem of gratitude; and Madeleine L'Engle contributes a lovely three-line invocation. This feast of women's poetry would make a marvelous gift from one woman to another, or--perhaps more importantly--for a woman to give herself.