__The Patron Saint of Restless Hearts__ 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 invites us to join him on this journey with an ancient African thinker who knows far more about us than we might expect. 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.  
  
"On the Road with Saint Augustine is a learned, large-hearted, and quite lively introduction to Augustine, or to life by way of Augustine, or to God by way of both. The variety of Smith's references is astonishing, as is the seamless way he moves among them. I expect many modern readers will find themselves--and, crucially, much more than themselves--in this book."--__Christian Wiman__, author of My Bright Abyss and Every Riven Thing   
"Augustine of Hippo is the patron saint of restless hearts. Now James K. A. Smith, long one of our most interesting theological thinkers, both orthodox and outlier, reintroduces this figure who is at once strange and familiar, ancient and contemporary. This book is a journey into the greatest journey of all, and a delight to read. Highly recommended."  
--__Krista Tippett__, founder and CEO, The On Being Project; host, On Being; curator, The Civil Conversations Project  
  
"Fascinating, engrossing, insightful, beautifully written, and often brilliant, this new book will open up the story and spirituality of St. Augustine to a new generation of readers and seekers."  
--__James Martin, SJ__, author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage   
"Smith opens this book by placing the contemporary culture of seeking the real, authentic self alongside the works of Augustine; then he continues by placing our contemporary experience alongside Augustine's biography; both moves yield a fund of interesting insights."  
--__Charles Taylor__, author of A Secular Age "By following Augustine's model and sharing his own faith journey, Smith makes Augustine's guidance accessible to a new generation of seekers."--__Publishers Weekly (starred review)__

__James K. A. Smith__ (PhD, Villanova University) is a popular speaker who has written many books, including Awaiting the King, Imagining the Kingdom, How (Not) to Be Secular, and the Christianity Today Book Award winners You Are What You Love, Desiring the Kingdom, and Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? He is professor of philosophy at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he holds the Gary and Henrietta Byker Chair in Applied Reformed Theology and Worldview. He is editor in chief of Image Journal. Smith has written for Christianity Today, the Christian Century, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and the Washington Post.

On the Road with Saint Augustine offers a fresh articulation of Christianity that speaks to our deepest hungers, fears, and hopes. Addressing believers and skeptics alike, this book shows how Augustine's timeless wisdom speaks to the worries and struggles of contemporary life, covering such wide-ranging topics as ambition, sex, friendship, freedom, parenthood, and death.   
  
"As the author well says, this is not a book about St. Augustine. But it certainly is a guide for reading Augustine as he wrote it and would probably prefer to be read, with a restless heart."  
--__Justo L. González__, author of The Mestizo Augustine  
   
"It is a fundamental Augustinian trope that we are not home. Here Jamie Smith riffs with unrivaled depth and texture on what it means to be in via--to be on the way--to be not at home. I am grateful, and I will keep this book with me as I pilgrim."  
--__Lauren F. Winner__, author of The Dangers of Christian Practice and Still   
"This book is James K. A. Smith's Born to Run. It's the story of the journey we are all on. For Smith, Saint Augustine is the perfect navigator. He's familiar with that 'highway jammed with broken heroes,' because he knows what it feels like to be a heart on the run. If you lust for the highway and feel the engine idling deep inside, your ride is here. Augustine is in the passenger seat with the map of our heart unfolded on his lap, waiting to take us home."  
--__Bob Crawford__, member of The Avett Brothers and cohost of The Road to Now podcast  
  
"On the Road with Saint Augustine is a spiritual reflection that reminds us why the ancient saint is not only essential for us but inescapable. With Augustine as guide, Smith takes the reader on a tour of the human heart. Profound, personal, and fast-paced, the book will nourish readers in almost any spiritual state."  
--__Kyle Harper__, University of Oklahoma

__★ Publishers Weekly starred review  
  
One of the Top 100 Books and One of the 5 Best Books in Religion for 2019, Publishers Weekly  
  
Christianity Today 2020 Book Award Winner (Spiritual Formation) Outreach 2020 Resource of the Year (Spiritual Growth) Foreword INDIES 2019 Honorable Mention for Religion__   
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 popular speaker and award-winning author invites readers to meet the ancient African thinker who can help us find ourselves and a faith that speaks to our deepest hungers and hopes.

__Contents__ Introduction  
__Orientation__ Heart on the Run  
 How to Hit the Road  
Augustine Our Contemporary  
 How to Find Yourself  
A Refugee Spirituality  
 How to Live Between  
__Detours on the Way to Myself__ Freedom  
 How to Escape  
Ambition  
 How to Aspire  
Sex  
 How to Connect  
Mothers  
 How to Be Dependent  
Friendship  
 How to Belong  
Enlightenment  
 How to Believe  
Story  
 How to Be a Character  
Justice  
 How to Protest  
Fathers  
 How to Be Broken  
Death  
 How to Hope  
Homecoming  
Index

\["For seekers exploring spirituality and life's meaning", "Helps you navigate modern life's challenges and questions", "You will find peace and purpose through Augustine's wisdom"\]

Journey through life’s complexities with Augustine as your guide.

Smith, James K. A.

Back Cover

The Patron Saint of Restless Hearts  
  
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 invites us to join him on this journey with an ancient African thinker who knows far more about us than we might expect. 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.   
  
Addressing believers and skeptics alike, this book   
  
● shows how Augustine's timeless wisdom speaks to the worries and struggles of contemporary life  
● covers topics such as ambition, sex, friendship, freedom, parenthood, and death  
● vividly and colorfully brings Augustine to life for 21st-century readers  
● offers a fresh articulation of Christianity that speaks to our deepest hungers, fears, and hopes  
  
"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."   
  
Augustine spent a lifetime searching for his heart's true home and he can help us find our way.  
  
★ Publishers Weekly starred review  
  
One of the Top 100 Books and One of the 5 Best Books in Religion for 2019, Publishers Weekly  
  
Christianity Today 2020 Book Award Winner (Spiritual Formation)  
  
Outreach 2020 Resource of the Year (Spiritual Growth)  
  
Foreword INDIES 2019 Honorable Mention for Religion

On the Road with Saint Augustine

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