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One Long River of Song: Notes on Wonder for the Spiritual and Nonspiritual Alike

  • Book
  • Dec 3, 2019
  • #Spirituality
Brian Doyle
@BrianDoyle
(Author)
www.goodreads.com
Hardcover
4.8/5 544 ratings
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4.65/5 1.1k ratings
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A playful, deeply moving book of spiritual essays-for the spiritual and non-spiritual alike-that excavate the rich seams of examined life and point to the miracles that surround us.... Show More

A playful, deeply moving book of spiritual essays-for the spiritual and non-spiritual alike-that excavate the rich seams of examined life and point to the miracles that surround us.

When Brian Doyle died of brain cancer at the age of sixty, he left behind dozens of books -- fiction and nonfiction, as well as hundreds of essays -- and a cult-like following who regarded his writing on spirituality as one of the best-kept secrets of the 21st century. Though Doyle occasionally wrote about Catholic spirituality, his writing is more broadly about the religion of everyday things. He writes with a delightful sense of wonder about the holiness of small things, and about love in all its forms: spiritual love, brotherly love, romantic love, friendly love, love of nature, and even the love of a nine-foot sturgeon.

At a time when our world feels darker than ever, Doyle's essays are a balm for the tired soul. He finds beauty in the quotidian: the awe of a child the first time she hears a river, the whiskers a grieving widow misses seeing in her sink every day -- but through his eyes, nothing is ordinary.

David James Duncan sums up Doyle's sensibilities best in his introduction to the collection: "Brian Doyle lived the pleasure of bearing daily witness to the glories hidden in people, places and creatures of little or no size or renown, and brought inimitably playful or soaring or aching or heartfelt language to his tellings." In a time when wonder seems to be in short supply, One Long River of Song, Doyle and Duncan invite readers to experience it in the most ordinary of moments, and allow themselves joy in the smallest of things.

(From Goodreads)

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Number of Pages: 250

ISBN: 0316492892

ISBN-13: 9780316492898

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Austin Kleon @austinkleon
  • Curated in 21 Good Books I Read in 2021 (with bonus 10 books)
A posthumous collection of an author I wish I’d read when he was alive. Maybe my favorite thing I read all winter. I savored a handful of essays each night in bed. If you’re new to his work, try his ode to the heart, “Joyas Voladoras,” or “The Greatest Nature Essay Ever.” There’s a big archive of his at The American Scholar. (Recommended to me by a newsletter reader. Thanks, Cate!)
Nick Howard @nickhoward · Dec 31, 2022
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I can't think of any better than One Long River of Song.
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