Books › Confessions
Confessions
First published 1595 · 1520 pages
An intimate, centuries-old prayer that wrestles with the deepest questions of memory, desire, and the search for the divine.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like eavesdropping on a soul in the midst of profound transformation. It is a deeply intimate, leisurely journey through the landscape of memory, desire, and intellectual wrestling. The prose is lyrical and urgent, structured as an unbroken, passionate prayer that pulls you into the author's most vulnerable admissions and soaring philosophical revelations. You sit inside a contemplative, spiritually charged atmosphere where existential restlessness slowly gives way to illuminated peace. The narrative meanders through dense theological inquiries—pondering the nature of time and the cosmos—yet remains anchored by a raw, beating human heart. This is a read for those who savor rigorous spiritual memoirs and delight in watching a brilliant mind surrender to divine mystery.
- Mood
- contemplative
- solemn
- spiritually charged
- awe-struck
- Tone
- earnest
- penitent
- searching
- intimate
- reverent
- Pace
- leisurely
- Themes
- spiritual awakening · the burden of regret · the nature of memory · divine grace · intellectual surrender
- The writing
- Lyrical, rhetorical, and deeply poetic, structured as an extended, intimate dialogue with the divine.
- The arc
- Moves from restless, agonizing spiritual wandering to profound surrender and illuminated peace.
- Who it's for
- Readers drawn to deep philosophical inquiry, spiritual memoirs, and the intersection of classical thought and raw personal vulnerability.
Content notes
- existential distress
- grief
- death of a parent
About the book
Garry Wills’s complete translation of Saint Augustine’s spiritual masterpiece—available now for the first time Garry Wills is an exceptionally gifted translator and one of our best writers on religion today. His bestselling translations of individual chapters of Saint Augustine’s Confessions have received widespread and glowing reviews. Now for the first time, Wills’s translation of the entire work is being published as a Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition. Removed by time and place but not by spiritual relevance, Augustine’s Confessions continues to influence contemporary religion, language, and thought. Reading with fresh, keen eyes, Wills brings his superb gifts of analysis and insight to this ambitious translation of the entire book. “[Wills] renders Augustine’s famous and influential text in direct language with all the spirited wordplay and poetic strength intact.”—Los Angeles Times“[Wills’s] translations... are meant to bring Augustine straight into our own minds; and they succeed. Well-known passages, over which my eyes have often gazed, spring to life again from Wills’s pages.”—Peter Brown, The New York Review of Books“Augustine flourishes in Wills’s hand.”—James Wood“A masterful synthesis of classical philosophy and scriptural erudition.”—Chicago Tribune
Description from Open Library.
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