Telling Stories, Telling Lives

Ann Lloyd's only previous memories of religion had been of bossy nuns and boring assemblies at primary school.

When she was shown a way of praying that reached beyond the recital of set prayers and attendance at conventional services it kick-started a spiritual search that was to lead her from boredom to fascination, from fear to trust, until she began to learn to 'live adventurously'.

A nun and a woman priest, the writer Philip Newell and the Dean of Westminster Abbey, Wesley Carr, and the Jesuit writer Gerard Hughes were amongst the 'guiding strangers' who act as Ann's wayfinders.

As they tell their stories and speak of the people who have been similarly crucial for them on their journeys, every reader will discover how their own journey in faith is a small detail in a larger tapestry.

Telling Stories, Telling Lives is both a compelling personal story and a vivid and absorbing introduction to spirituality for people with a spiritual itch they can't quite scratch.

It will appeal to everyone hungry for the things of God but allergic to institutional religion