wiman gazing into the abyss ambition and survival

For those who want an introduction to Taylor’s expansive thought, but are not quite ready to launch into his 900-page magnus opus, A Secular Age, this new book is an excellent primer. The book is brilliant for its simplicity: ask perhaps the most distinguished living Catholic philosopher to choose and discuss five books that have shaped his faith, and then engage him in dialogue about those books. And so it is with deep enthusiasm that I commend to you Charles Taylor’s Avenues of Faith: Conversations with Jonathan Guilbault, a compact work recently published by Baylor University Press. Whatever the reason, I love being able to pick up a book, and maybe, just maybe, not set it down again until it has been read cover to cover. Perhaps it is just my twenty-first century attention span.

But there is something deeply satisfying about short books. I love long books too completing War and Peace a few years back still stands as a singular personal achievement. Avenues of Faith: Conversations with Jonathan Guilbaultīy Charles Taylor, trans.

Wiman gazing into the abyss ambition and survival