I Want to Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth

In this picaresque memoir—a dark and divine comedy of family and faith—acclaimed novelist and nature writer, Brenda Peterson, embraces this earthly life while her relatives prepare fervently to leave it. As a “wild, rather odd, and unknowingly subversive child,” she survives fierce “sword drill” competitions over total recall of the Scriptures and awkward dinner table questions—"Will Rapture take the cat, too?" Peterson paints such a hilarious and tender portrait that the reader, too, may want to be left behind. The memoir was selected by independent booksellers as a “Great Read” and an “Indie Next.” Chosen as a “Top Ten Best Non-fiction Book of the Year” by Christian Science Monitor, I Want to Be Left Behind celebrates what the Los Angeles Times calls her “rich and often lovely life—full of humor and Peterson’s own brand of faith.”