Reviews
"This daring, graceful little book is a powerful profession of faith." – Detroit Free Press
"Plainly told, gently nuanced, the story has appeal for those who believe in the healing power of memory." -- Publisher's Weekly
"[He] has been one of our most celebrated storytellers." -- USA Today
"The Wizard’s Tide is often grouped with Buechner’s novels, but that is a problematic classification, since the short book is so directly autobiographical…. The Wizard’s Tide is a novel infused by memoir, or is it nonfiction infused by fiction? … The book is, as he labels it, “A Story,” but it is decidedly his own story, a thinly veiled revisiting of Buechner’s own childhood… The Wizard’s Tide is another take on the central event of Buechner’s life, his father’s suicide." - W. Dale Brown, The Book of Buechner
Reviews
"He is one of our greatest novelists...The Storm is...a miniature epic...a quiet marvel." - The Philadelphia Inquirer
"A wonderfully human and satisfying meditative romance. A marvelous adaptation of Shakespeare - one of the best ever." - Kirkus Reviews
"[The Storm] leaves readers with admiration (again) for Buechner’s ability to create tension, resolve conflicts, and finally reach reconciliation." – Dallas Morning News
"For all its charm and lilt, The Storm, like any among Buechner's best novels, cannot be taken lightly." – The San Diego Reader
"The Storm is nothing less than a modern paraphrase of Shakespeare's The Tempest; and it is entirely wonderful." – Ft. Worth Morning Star-Telegram
"Like other fine books by Frederick Buechner, The Storm is highly original and delights and surprises from first page to last. This is a warm and wonderful novel, a magical story, allusively and gracefully offering us an up-to-date, shadow version of Shakespeare's The Tempest. Stylish, witty, compassionate and charitable. The Storm is a story whose brilliant pleasures lead inevitably to a satisfying wisdom." – George Garrett, author of Death of the Foxes
"Buechner insures that all’s well that ends well." – New York Times Book Review
Reviews
Hailed as "one of our most original storytellers" (USA Today), Pulitzer Prize-nominated author Frederick Buechner has written an extraordinary new novel that shines with the mystery and wonder of the divine. - HarperCollins
"This clergyman can tell a story that has a theological dimension without sounding sanctimonious or trite, partly because his writing style is based on contemporary speech and partly because his turn of mind is ironic, unsentimental. He's been able to update Mark Twain's sense of comedy, so that his books, no matter how exotic the setting or characters, always sound idiomatically American." – The New York Times Book Review, Alfred Corn
"One of the brightest lights in late-twentieth-century literature, Frederick Buechner has published more than twenty-five works of fiction and nonfiction that continue to dazzle critics and readers alike, adding continuously to the ranks of his fiercely loyal following...I give "On the Road With the Archangel" my full recommendation." - anonymous reviewer
Reviews
"With profound intelligence, Buechner’s novel does what the finest, most appealing literature does: It displays and illuminates the seemingly unrelated mysteries of human character and ultimate ideas." – Annie Dillard, Boston Globe
"This is an extraordinary novel that demonstrates both the truth of fiction and Buechner’s superb ability to offer it." – Christian Century
"A masterpiece." – National Catholic Reporter
"In The Sacred Journey, Buechner tells us that we must learn to hear in our lives the sound of the holy. “It is the function of all great preaching,” he writes, “and of all great art, to sharpen our hearing to precisely that end.” Son of Laughter will not only help one hear that sound; it is that sound." – Brooke Horvath
"...beautifully presented. The novel is rich with sensory description." - Library Journal
"Buechner has taken the grand story of Jacob – breathed life into it and set its vivid people in motion...writing that sounds as though the writer is holding onto a lightning bolt." – Annie Dillard
"The Bible’s account of Jacob is a pungent seed found in a tomb. Frederick Buechner has planted it and the result is this beautiful swaying tree of a book." – James Merrill
Reviews
"An artistic triumph to rival the award-winning Godric and Buechner's other outstanding works, this novel...reads like inspired biography. Ribald humor, piercing sorrows and miraculous moments jon seemlessly in Buechner's latest literary feat." - Reed Business Information
"Strikingly convincing...sinewy and lyrical." – The New York Times Book Review
"Exuberant…proves the power of faith to lift us up, to hold us straight, to send us on again." – The Washington Post Book World
"A lusty, bawdy, teeming, festooning, dancing marvel of a book. Within its crafty interlacings, we can read its buoyant meaning: that life, for all its woes, is essentially a comedy." – The Los Angeles Times Book Review
"A grand, gaudy tale." - The Atlantic
"An artistic triumph." - Publishers Weekly
Reviews
"A remarkable book...[A] true work of art." - Atlantic Monthly
"Godric is a memorable book...a marvelous gem of a book...destined to become a classic of its kind." -- Michael Heskett, Houston Chronicle
"Mr. Buechner has managed to reinvent projects of self-purification and of faith as piquant matter for contemporary fiction [in a book] notable for literary finish...Frederick Buechner is a very good writer indeed." - New York Times Book Review
"From the book's opening sentence...and sensible reader will be caught in Godric's grip...Godric glimmers brightly." -- Peter S. Prescott, Newsweek
"In the extraordinary figure of Godric, both stubborn outsider and true child of God, both worldly and unworldly, Frederick Buechner has found an ideal means of exploring the nature of spirituality. Godric is a living battleground where God fights it out with the world, the Flesh, and the Devil." -- London Times Literary Supplement
"With a poet's sensibly and a high reverent fancy, Frederick Buechner paints a memorable portrait." -- Edmund Fuller, The Wall Street Journal
Reviews
“Some of the most masterly comic prose being written in America...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
“The way Buechner writes is special and engaging - serious, comic, with a kind of reverent irreverence for his people and their lives.”
— Publishers Weekly
“In the character of Leo Bebb, Buechner has created a wild and canny charlatan who might also be a genius.”
— The Boston Globe
Reviews
“Leo Bebb is a great character…Frederick Buechner is a master craftsman. His books abound with wonder and mystery, both human and divine. They are funny and they are wise. And Treasure Hunt illuminates Buechner at the very top of his form.” – Larry Swindell, Philadelphia Inquirer
"There must be a lot of Frederick Buechner fans out there who loved reading his wild novels about Leo Bebb, holy con man, devout scalawag, cockalorum, whose antics in the name of the Lord were a stronger affirmation of faith than the platitudes of the pious. Well, there's a new one...They are all wonderfully funny and at the same time deeply reverent...I'll say it again. These are grand books." - Margaret Manning, Boston Globe
"For Buechner addicts who have read Lion Country, Open Heart, or Love Feast, it is necessary only to say that this is a new book about Leo Bebb, as told by his son-in-law Antonio. These delightful novels are about religion, faith, and miracles - and how impossible they are to come by these days. But most readers laugh so hard they never even notice the serious undercurrents." - People Magazine
"Could anyone but Frederick Buechner blend reincarnation, UFOs, transistorized teeth, adultery, illegitimacy, and Jesus without seeming a smart-aleck, preacher, or a lout?" - Kirkus Review
"What happens and what is discovered is only part of the charm of this new Buechner novel. For the way the man writes is special and engaging - serious, comic, with a kind of reverent irreverence for his people and his lives. Thanks to Buechner's amused and amusing view, his easy wit and style, this one's something special." - Publishers Weekly
"The novel abounds in omens, coincidences, and contrivances because Buechner, like Parr, wants us to venture forth and find wise treasure...We laugh; we cry; we gain golden wisdom after reading about his adventures." - Irving Malin
Reviews
“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.” – Michael Mewshaw, The New York Times Book Review
“Frederick Buechner's Love Feast is the third of his wonderful stories about Leo Bebb, the itinerant minister of the gospel...The word about Bebb is simple – he lights up every page on which he appears, making each one a joy to read and to anticipate, and of all the characters in American literature, only Hemingway’s Bill Gorton rivals him in that respect.” – Roger Sale, Hudson Review
"Buechner never has had difficulty entertaining; but he clearly has other purposes in mind, and these come through in the frequent moments of tenderness when he lets his characters hurts show. They become vulnerable and in so doing almost, almost let the holy show through...This is neither apology nor satire. It is comment on How Things Are...Buechner, with this trilogy, has established himself as the one who best works the genre." - Martin E. Marty, Chicago Daily News
"Frederick Buechner belongs in my parade. He's a rare one - this writer-poet-theologian. This is his eight novel and I am still - to quote the psalmist - drinking the wine of astonishment...This stylish and witty writer makes the faith seem more expansive and mysterious. Reading Love Feast gives one a marvelous sense of joy in being." - Cultural Information Service
"Buechner, himself a minister, writes about matters theological with a fine satiric touch and a keen appreciation of human foibles. His novels are exceedingly funny, but they are given great depth by Buechner's genuine affection and compassion for his characters. That is especially true of Love Feast, in which Buechner has marvelous fun with Bebb's amiable conniving but in which he also portrays with complexity and feeling the temporarily disintegrated marriage of Bebb's daughter and son-in-law...Life is precisely what Buechner is writing about. Beneath all the antics of Leo Bebb and those around him there is a continuing celebration of life and the interrelation of lives. Buechner's people may at first glance seem caricatures, but their robustness is merely humanity magnified." - Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
Reviews
"Open Heart, by Frederick Buechner, is simply wonderful. It's a book to be happy with, for it is enchantingly funny...This is a first-rate novel that can be relished on whatever level you choose...Buechner is more than a good writer; he always has been a superb craftsman and one who dealt with important subjects." - Margaret Manning, Boston Globe
"He has composed a very well-written, striking, humorous story. It is a pleasure to read and difficult to put down." - Peter Rowley, Chicago Sun-Times
"Mr. Buechner has an engaging comic sense, a firm theological clarity of mind, and a mastery of prose whereby he can get practically any effect in the novelist's bag of tricks." - Guy Davenport, National Review
"Good news. Frederick Buechner, who has quietly become one of America's finest novelists, has just published an extraordinary new novel called Open Heart." - Michael Putney, The National Observer
"Whenever a writer allows me to enter a new world of imagination, I am grateful. He has somehow performed the magic of creating a story that is even more pleasant to remember than to read. If you do the latter, Buechner will enable you to do the former." - Robert Baker, The Christian Century
"Open Heart will ask what we are to do with emptiness and loss." - W. Dale Brown, The Book of Buechner
Reviews
"Frederick Buechner is one of our finest writers. He has produced a body of work as impressive as any American writer currently practicing the art of fiction. Lion Country...has many morals, not the least being that a constantly entertaining novel can also deal successfully with the most serious ideas." - James Dickey
"Frederick Buechner can find grace and redemption even in the shoddiest, phoniest aspects of a cultural wasteland. One reads Lion Country...with hope and delight." - Louis Auchincloss
“Frederick Buechner’s career has worked its way in twenty years through the serious precocity of A Long Day’s Dying into a profound calm contemplation of the nonhuman sources of life, knowledge and joy. Now – when the danger was that calm would become becalmed – he has written Lion Country, a novel that demands a new kind of energy from his old sources. Demands and gets – it is his richest work, and unprecedented comedy which resounds, for me, with a depth and length that reconfirm not only his own high position among living novelists but our overdue debt of attention and gratitude to him for craft, stamina, wisdom, and, now, laughter.” – Reynolds Price
"This is Frederick Buechner's sixth novel and his best." - Newsweek
"Lion Country is a fine blend of craft and comedy." - Philadelphia Inquirer
"...disparate elements fuse brilliantly in a novel that is genuinely entertaining and also genuinely moving." - Barbara Bannon, Publishers Weekly
"Lion Country is elegantly written and very funny - a serious theme embedded in hilarity. Lion Country is a splendid book." - Boston Globe
Reviews
"In his new novel Frederick Buechner again shows his unique talent for making wonders real and the real wonderful. The book opens up dimensions of our modern hurts and impasses that are missing from much of our fiction." - Amos N. Wilder
"...like all of his fiction, it is a subtle, deliberate, patient attempt to arrive at the truth of things." - John Barkham, Saturday Review
"The intervals between Frederick Buechner's thoughtful, serious novels are too long for this reader....A novel of substance..." - Publishers' Weekly
"One of the finest pieces of imaginative prose I have come across for some time....a beautiful, thoughtful, and often witty novel whose music will, I am sure, reverberate in the imagination for a long time." - Vernon Scannell, The Irish Press
Reviews
“His novel is a minor masterpiece of wit and human understanding.” – John Davenport, The Spectator
“This is a story that skates with daring skill and exuberant speed over the thin ice of potential blasphemy, sentimentality, and violence to emerge finally on the firm, smooth surface of honest faith and uproarious laughter.” – Katherine Gauss Jackson, Harper’s Magazine
"Here is the rarest of the rare in contemporary fiction: a novel devoted to the celebration of faith and joy. If you enjoy good fiction and stand within the Christian faith, a first reading of The Final Beast will give you pleasure and a second reading will enrich your faith." - Lee Whiston, United Church Herald
"Buechner has given us a beautifully written, sensitive novel in The Final Beast...Buechner is able to take this flagrantly Christian viewpoint, and still captivate the mind of the person who likely couldn't care less about this religion. Quite a feat." - The Episcopalian
Reviews
"This is a wholly absorbing, mature, and timely work. The fact that it is also delightful reading is a tribute to its author's skill." - A. C. Spectorsky, Saturday Review
"Mr. Buechner has written an extraordinarily dramatic story." - Charles Poore, The New York Times
"Mr. Buechner casts his own particular, brilliantly indirect illumination on a private world that is luxurious, comfortable, furnished with intelligence and a certain charm, possessed of intense loyalty to itself and its members, and generous, with polite and sensible reservations, to outsiders." - The New Yorker
"This is a mature piece of work.: - Literary News
"There is depth and sensitivity to his writing that gives life to the most unreal of his characters." - John P. Marquand
Reviews
"The Seasons' Difference is a suave and urbane comedy about several immense abstractions - faith, innocence, loneliness, and love." - Orville Prescott, New York Times Book Review
"A brilliant book." - Francis Bickley, Punch
"In this clever novel, the recesses of the sane and unbelieving mind are probed and found wanting." - Katherine S. Rosin, Book-of-the-Month Club
"To skip over The Seasons' Difference would be to miss so much that is vintage Buechner: the longing and the near-misses, the hints of a heavenly explanation and the harsh reminders of earthly realities, and the near saint set beside the bumbling fool - both in the same character." - W. Dale Brown, The Book of Buechner
"The poised ambiguity of faith and doubt in complex mixture becomes one of Buechner's first and most enduring theological themes, his calling card for years to come." - W. Dale Brown, The Book of Buechner
Reviews
“Written with remarkable virtuosity.” – Saturday Review of Literature
"A study in nuance of character and atmosphere, this is delicately oriented and finely drawn." -- Kirkus Reviews
“A Long Day’s Dying is full of questions as to how a life might be lived.” Dale Brown
