First published as Praying Through Life in 1998 Bishop Stephen Cottrell asks in his introduction whether we really need yet another book on prayer, and whether he, ‘a muddled beginner’, is the person to write one. I’m glad he did decide to produce this little book, as it will greatly help beginners and refresh old stagers in that relationship with God, which is prayer, woven into all of life. He has lots of helpful things to say, for example about praying with other people, prayer at work, many styles and situations, silence, difficulties with prayer, a weekly pattern and prayer over the year. He devotes considerable space to prayer withrather than for children and teenagers, which he feels have been ‘terribly neglected’ areas in Christian formation’. Now, I don’t think you can reduce prayer to a set of rules. So what do I make of Chapter 15, ‘Ten Golden Rules’? Well, I admit they do provide an eminently sensible and positive ‘check list and yardstick for our developing life of prayer’. And more than once, Cottrell does quote Chapman’s sound and popular advice, ‘Pray as you can, not as you can’t’. I recommend this book for starters and more experienced types alike.