The Best Spiritual Writing 2001 (Paperback)

by Philip Zaleski (Author), Andre Dubus III (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Senior editor for Parabola magazine Philip Zaleski has a finely tuned sense of strong writing and strong spirit, as evidenced in the fifth installment of his highly esteemed Best Spiritual Writing series. The introduction by Andre Dubus III (House of Sand and Fog) sets the stage for the writers to follow. He tells of stumbling upon a "spiritual bookstore" while vacationing and how he immediately recoiled from the incense, crystals, goddess posters, and bookshelves labeled "Transcendence" and "Healing." On the same street he discovered a bookstore with a cigarette-smoking clerk and familiar genres: fiction, poetry. While one store shouted spiritual slogans and quick fixes, the other invited his soul to travel the gritty mysteries of characters, dialog, landscape, and story. "And it occurred to me that the form of spirituality I trust most comes directly from the sensual mass of life itself." Indeed, the host of heavenly voices in this anthology seems to rise from the complicated "sensual mass" called life. Bestselling author Brett Lott speaks of Oprah selecting Jewel for her book club and how it set in motion a series of humiliating lessons. In "Stillbirth," Leah Konselik Lebec reckons with the death of her 28-week-old son in utero. Some essays rise from a seeker's wonderment, such as Valerie Martin's essay "Being St. Francis." There are the occasional dry spots, but they remind readers that spirituality is not an entertainment industry. Rather, it is a reverent process born out of the willingness to listen and pay close attention. Other contributors include Terry Tempest Williams, Thomas Moore, and Pattiann Rogers. --Gail Hudson

From Publishers Weekly
If, as Zaleski writes in the preface to his latest anthology, the best spiritual writing flourishes in an atmosphere of silence, then the very finest of what was produced in 2000 may still lie in obscurity. Given that, Zaleski once again has skillfully skimmed the cream from the top of last year's published spiritual prose and poetry. In this, his fourth gathering of writers, he has assembled works from the known and the lesser known. Names such as Thomas Moore (Care of the Soul) and George Weigel (Witness to Hope) are among the draws, but the writing itself is the major attraction. It is difficult to page casually through this repository of gems without finding something appealing to read. There is "The Yoga Exercise," a two-stanza verse by Floyd Skloot, whose words are as elegant and lithe as the prayer posture he describes. Likewise, Patricia Hampl's "The Sacrament of Reconciliation" artfully plaits the writer's childhood memories of Catholic confession into her rediscovery of the now-reformed ritual. Also worth noting among the 30 selections is Ben Birnbaum's "How to Pray," a masterful essay on prayer that taps the author's 1950s boyhood recollections, blending them with stories from sources as disparate as the Talmud and a Jewish children's magazine. Although not every faith tradition is represented, Zaleski is generally to be lauded for the diversity of his choices, which this year include works with Christian, Jewish, Native American and Buddhist themes. (Sept.)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 294 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne (September 18, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062517724
• ISBN-13: 978-0062517722
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,377,768 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Find LIFE ABUNDANT in these Slice-of-Life Tales!, March 8, 1999

By	ANN KNIGHT (Ardrossan, AB Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Best Spiritual Writing 1998 (Best American Spiritual Writing) (Paperback)

Philip Zaleski has done a masterful job of seeking out and commending the work of some eighty writers who live for "making sentences," as Joseph Epstein confesses. And because they do, they tell with great beauty of the particular struggles and joys which have brought them along a spiritual path. Some of these writers make us comfortable, some disturb. The reading becomes an opportunity to accept the challenges of the particular life I have chosen. In doing that, I, too, see a blessing within the day Today! Your heart will be softer and your mind more open after exposure to these adventurers. Where other spiritual writers offer us helpings of chicken soup, here is spread the finest of feasts. Paella for the literate soul! (Even if you're nearer the North Pole or a Zen Community than you imagined.)

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another adventure for the soul., October 8, 2001

By	G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

"I think, that we need to detach ourselves from fashions and fads, that we should work with one eye on the earth and the other on heaven, that we must return regularly to silence" (p. xiv), editor Philip Zaleski writes in the Preface to this collection in The Best Spiritual Writing series, which he introduced in 1998. Although his latest edition lacks many of the compelling voices of previous years--Natalie Goldberg, Anne Lamott, Barry Lopez, Annie Dillard, and Philip Levine, for instance--Zaleski once again provides his reader with an adventure for the soul.

Based on his experience hearing the secrets of confession, Lorenzo Albacete, a Roman Catholic priest, observes that the "language of the inner life is a serene silence, a deep hurt, a boundless desire, and occasionally, a little laughter" (p. 3). In his "Sabbath" poem, Wendell Berry dreams "of a quiet man/ who explains nothing and defends nothing but only knows/ where the rarest wildflowers/ are blooming, and who goes/ where they are and stands still" (p. 16). In another memorable poem collected here, "Clear Night," Charles Wright wants "to be bruised by God" (p. 277), while gazing up at the stars. In his essay, "Bear Butte Diary," John Landretti introduces us to a shaman with an appreciation for coffee and cigarettes (p. 66). In perhaps the most moving essay here, "Stillbirth," Leah Kuncelik Lebec learns from the heart, through her seven-month-old stillborn baby, that God loves us all, "yes, loves us, all six billion--whatever--of us, teeming over the earth" (p. 104). Brian Doyle contemplates "grace" in "Grace Notes," and David James Duncan contemplates "strategic withdrawal" in his essay. While Thomas Moore examines the "in-between places" of transition that make life worth living (p. 184), Valerie Martin meditates upon Saint Francis, and Terry Tempest Williams ponders Saint Teresa in Spain, a place that looks much like her home in the American southwest: "Little excess. Nothing wasted" (p. 260). Joan D. Stamm considers "the way of flowers."

In short, this 277-page collection will not disappoint those readers interested in experiencing spiritual perspectives that have one eye on "the dusty world" and the other on heaven.

G. Merritt