Overview

One of the most famous books ever written about a man's search for faith and peace. The Seven Storey Mountain tells of the growing restlessness of a brilliant and passionate young man, who at the age of twenty-six, takes vows in one of the most demanding Catholic orders--the Trappist monks. At the Abbey of Gethsemani, ""the four walls of my new freedom,"" Thomas Merton struggles to withdraw from the world, but only after he has fully immersed himself in it. At the abbey, he wrote this extraordinary testament, a unique spiritual autobiography that has been recognized as one of the most influential religious works of our time. Translated into more than twenty languages, it has touched millions of lives. This beautifully produced commemorative edition includes an account of the book's original publication by Merton's editor, Robert Giroux, an Introduction by Merton's biographer, Father William Shannon, and Merton's own Introduction to the Japanese edition.

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9780151004133

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Reviews

Without a life of the spirit our whole existence becomes unsubstantial and illusory.-Thomas Merton --No Source

Without a life of the spirit our whole existence becomes unsubstantial and illusory.-Thomas Merton

""[Thomas Merton] is perhaps the proper patron saint of our information-saturated age, of we who live and move and have our being in social media, and then, desperate for peace and rest, withdraw into privacy and silence, only to return. As we always will."" -- The New Yorker ""[Merton] is an incredible source of light and comfort and humor."" -- Anne Lamott ""[The Seven Storey Mountain] may well prove to be of permanent interest in the history of religious experience."" -- Evelyn Waugh ""a remarkable book, a classic of its kind....a book one reads with a pencil so as to make it one's own....a pattern and meaning valid for all of us."" -- Graham Greene ""It is to a book like this that men will turn a hundred years from now to find out what went on in the heart of men in this cruel century."" -- Clare Booth Luce ""The fervor of [Merton's] progress to the monastery of Gethsemane is deeply moving. It is a difficult matter to write about, but I think there will be many who, however alien the experience may remain to them personally, will put the narrative down with wonder and respect."" -- New York Herald Tribune ""bracing in its realism, sincere, direct and challenging. . . . The Seven Storey Mountain is a prolonged prayer as well as a great book."" -- F. X. Connolly, Catholic World ""With publication of his autobiography, Merton became a cult figure among pious Catholics."" -- Newsweek ""under its spell disillusioned veterans, students, even teenagers flocked to monasteries across the country either to stay or visit as retreatants."" -- Time ""[Merton's] example made credible an extreme religious option that would strike many as unthinkable."" -- New York Times ""Merton's vivid writing, his spiritual honesty, and his heavenly quest fired my soul."" -- National Catholic Reporter ""The Seven Storey Mountain is undoubtedly one of the most significant accounts of conversion from the modern temper to God that our time has seen."" -- America Magazine

Author Information

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was born in France and came to live in the United States at the age of 24. He received several awards recognizing his contribution to religious study and contemplation, including the Pax Medal in 1963, and remained a devoted spiritualist and a tireless advocate for social justice until his death in 1968.

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