The Jane Austen Guide to Life: Thoughtful Lessons for the Modern Woman (May, 2012)
Jane Austen has become our patron saint of romance, our goddess of happy endings. Her name is synonymous with romantic sighs, period costumes, and the ideal of what love should be. But if she could give us advice about life and love, what would she tell us? What would she make of match.com, or of our obsession with finding The One?
Austen’s stories give us relationship advice that still works today, but her life offers us so much more wisdom than just that pertaining to love. In our fame-obsessed culture, it’s refreshing to think that Austen preferred to remain anonymous. Ironically, Jane Austen—master of love stories—never married, and can teach us something about being single. She also endured many painful circumstances, and managed them with grace and humor.
In this light biography and guide, Smith surmises about Austen’s sensible advice for 21st century women—on everything from living our dreams, being a woman of substance, finding a good man, managing money, and much more.
As such an astute student of human nature, Austen can teach us an awful lot about ourselves and about what it means to live well.
A Walk with Jane Austen: A Journey into Adventure, Love & Faith (2007)
At thirty-three, dealing with a difficult job and a creeping depression, Lori Smith embarked on a life-changing journey following the life and lore of Jane Austen through England.
With humor and spirit, Lori leads readers through landscapes Jane knew and loved–from Bath and Lyme, to London and the Hampshire countryside–and through emotional landscapes in which grace and hope take the place of stagnation and despair. Along the way, Lori explores the small things, both meanness and goodness in relationships, to discover what Austen herself knew: the worth of an ordinary life.
A Walk with Jane Austen was also released in the UK with the subtitle A Modern Woman’s Search for Happiness, Fulfillment, and Her Very Own Mr. Darcy.
The Single Truth: Challenging the Misconceptions of Singleness with God’s Consuming Truth (2002)
Many single Christians don’t feel as though they fit in at church. Some wonder what they did wrong to miss the person they were supposed to marry. If they’re divorced, they may carry a burden of guilt and lies. They’re lonely, and many believe they’ve missed God’s greatest blessing for their lives. They want to be content but don’t think it’s possible. For some, singleness means fear, grief, and jealousy. If you are single and struggling with its attendant “stigma,” The Single Truth offers you God’s liberating truths about singleness. Lori Smith clears away the fog and lies surrounding singleness and challenges you to live a full life and to see your singleness as a part of God’s good plan.
The Single Truth was also translated into Mandarin, but I’m not sure where or if it’s still available.
Loved: Stories of Forgiveness (2009)
Lori worked as one of five co-writers for Rebecca St. James on this project.
Young men and women who have fallen away and then rediscovered the love of Christ speak of God’s forgiveness and healing abilities in these stories of modern-day prodigals. Some follow a path much like Jesus’ parable, turning their backs on family and faith in exchange for money and power. Some slip into a more subtle slide away from faith, allowing doubt or apathy to pull them away from who they are. Some make huge mistakes and are forced to pay painful penalties. Yet each story has the positive ending of a life saved by Jesus Christ. Each story offers hope of renewal and restoration. Written for all those who fear that God can’t or won’t forgive them for what they did, Loved is a book of hope.