Buechner 101 (2014)
Essays and Sermons by Frederick Buechner
Book Description
In Buechner 101, celebrated author Anne Lamott curates a selection of Frederick Buechner’s finest prose excerpts, introducing the author and his work to a new generation of readers.
Drawn from his novels, memoirs, essay collections, sermon anthologies, and lexicographies, the passages featured here exemplify the themes and style that are unique to Buechner: elegant, witty, elastic prose that yields insights on a variety of topics, from sainthood to doubt, from art to evil, and from tears to forgiveness.
With an introduction provided by Anne Lamott, a reflection by Buechner scholar Dale Brown, and several tributes and meditations from noted authors, this volume, published by the Frederick Buechner Center, offers a fresh avenue into the life and work of one of the most important writer-theologians of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
You never know what may cause tears. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you’ve never seen before. A pair of somebody’s old shoes can do it. Almost any movie made before the great sadness that came over the world after the Second World War, a horse cantering across a meadow, the high-school basketball team running out onto the gym floor at the start of a game. You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next.
Reviews
"If Frederick Buechner subordinated his nature and chose to write on naughts and nothings, he would still exalt his readers. When he is in representative harmony and writes of the accessibility of God to humanity and of humanity's agreement with its potential divinity, we, the readers, are lifted up, buoyed up, and promised wholeness."
— The Lutheran
"Frederick Buechner brings the reader to his knees, sometimes in laughter, sometimes in an astonishment very close to prayer, and at the best of times in a combination of both."
— The New York Times Book Review
"You've likely heard of Frederick Buechner. His devotees speak of him with held breath and wide eyes (myself included.) What's all the fuss? Here's your chance to find out. This is a marvelous introduction to his expansive worldview, his startling insights, his fluid river-like prose. But let me warn you. You'll be swept underground, to caves and cisterns of faith and questioning and beauty you didn't even know existed. And you'll run out to buy his books. "
— Leslie Leyland Fields, author
"Read "101" and you will want to read all of Buechner's books. Timeless. Transparent. Transforming. With a singular insight and clarity, Buechner expounds on all the things you wished you'd heard in church."
— Amazon Customer
