Name: On the Road with Saint Augustine
ISBN: 9781587433894

James K. A. Smith

This is not a book about Saint Augustine. In a way, it's a book Augustine has written about each of us. Popular speaker and award-winning author James K. A. Smith has spent time on the road with Augustine, and he invites us to take this journey too, for this ancient African thinker knows far more about us than we might expect. Following Smith's successful You Are What You Love, this book shows how Augustine can be a pilgrim guide to a spirituality that meets the complicated world we live in. Augustine, says Smith, is the patron saint of restless hearts--a guide who has been there, asked our questions, and knows our frustrations and failed pursuits. Augustine spent a lifetime searching for his heart's true home and he can help us find our way. "What makes Augustine a guide worth considering," says Smith, "is that he knows where home is, where rest can be found, what peace feels like, even if it is sometimes ephemeral and elusive along the way." Addressing believers and skeptics alike, this book shows how Augustine's timeless wisdom speaks to the worries and struggles of contemporary life, covering topics such as ambition, sex, friendship, freedom, parenthood, and death. As Smith vividly and colorfully brings Augustine to life for 21st-century readers, he also offers a fresh articulation of Christianity that speaks to our deepest hungers, fears, and hopes.

A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts

On the Road with Saint Augustine

Rick Dobrowolski

This is a beautiful book. Rarely do I want a book to never come to an end, and this was one of this rare books that I wanted to keep on reading forever. 

Prepare to have your heart stirred. 

I’ve always been fascinated by the life of Augustine, and James K.A. Smith makes him come alive in a creative and thought-provoking manner.

Jeremy Anderberg

"the opposite of ambition is not humility; it is sloth, passivity, timidity, and complacency. We sometimes like to comfort ourselves by imagining that the ambitious are prideful and arrogant so that those of us who never risk, never aspire, never launch out into the deep get to wear the moralizing mantle of humility. But this imagining is often just thin cover for a lack of courage, even laziness."

I was thrilled to see a new book from him show up in my mailbox. I’ve read bits of You Are What You Love that fairly blew my mind. (I’ve not read the entire thing because I’ve been worried about how much it’ll screw with my head.)

This new book finds Smith on a journey — both physical and spiritual/intellectual — with St. Augustine and his writings. The heart of the text is about our era of restlessness and how we can look to Augustine’s life to find some comfort and direction, using his Confessions as a road map.

Each chapter takes on a facet of life that makes us sort of fidgety and anxious — ambition, friendship, parenthood, death, even that Millennial idea of “finding yourself.” Using Augustine, as well as a host of other philosophers (Camus, Heidegger, etc.) and modern thinkers (Leslie Jamison, Ta-Nehisi Coates, etc.), Smith guides the reader through some intellectual and spiritual ideas on how to think differently about these things.

Admittedly, it’s a somewhat heady book, and there were plenty of parts that my brain sort of glazed over due to lack of understanding. But, there were also pieces that beautifully captured what it means to live in our modern age and how to find some solace.

Nevin Marmion

Ben Radford

★ Publishers Weekly starred review This is not a book about Saint Augustine. In a way, it's a book Augustine has written about each of us. Popular speaker and award-winning author James K. A. Smith has spent time on the road with Augustine, and he invites us to take this journey too, for this ancient African thinker knows far more about us than we might expect. Following Smith's successful You Are What You Love, this book shows how Augustine can be a pilgrim guide to a spirituality that meets the complicated world we live in. Augustine, says Smith, is the patron saint of restless hearts--a guide who has been there, asked our questions, and knows our frustrations and failed pursuits. Augustine spent a lifetime searching for his heart's true home and he can help us find our way. "What makes Augustine a guide worth considering," says Smith, "is that he knows where home is, where rest can be found, what peace feels like, even if it is sometimes ephemeral and elusive along the way." Addressing believers and skeptics alike, this book shows how Augustine's timeless wisdom speaks to the worries and struggles of contemporary life, covering topics such as ambition, sex, friendship, freedom, parenthood, and death. As Smith vividly and colorfully brings Augustine to life for 21st-century readers, he also offers a fresh articulation of Christianity that speaks to our deepest hungers, fears, and hopes.

On the Road with Saint Augustine A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts