Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life

"A profound and lucid mixture of philosophy, theology and self-help. It's a perfect detox for the soul... Spry, eloquent, pacy... Armstrong has a knack for grappling with complex ideas in the lightest of ways" The Times "It sees Armstrong combine in this brief volume both her usual high quality historical scholarship and an explicit self-help programme that echoes her rousing lectures... Challenging, persuasive self-help book that seeks to distil the very best of religion" Independent "Straightforward without being simplistic...frequently fascinating" Metro "Flashes of sheer brilliance" Scotland on Sunday "One of the charming things about Armstrong's book is its deliberate descents into bathos. We move from the high thoughts of the old sages to the demands of everyday life...from an exquisitely intelligent exposition of Sophocles's Oedipus Tyrannus to a meditation upon how we might overcome a personal dislike of a colleague or family member" Financial Times