Tales of Wonder LP: Adventures Chasing the Divine, an Autobiography [Large Print] [Paperback]

Huston Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 19, 2009

Smith's life is a story of uncanny synchronicity. He was there for pivotal moments in human history such as the founding of the United Nations and the student uprising at Tiananmen Square. As he traveled the world he encountered thinkers who shaped the twentieth century, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., and Thomas Merton.

In search of intellectual and spiritual treasures, Smith traveled to India to meet with Mother Teresa, befriended the Dalai Lama, and recorded music with Pete Seger. Most important, he shared the world's religions with the West—writing two bestselling books and serving as the focus of a five-part PBS series by Bill Moyers.

Huston Smith is a national treasure. His life is an extraordinary adventure, and in his amazing Tales of Wonder, he invites you to come along to explore your own vistas of heart, mind, and soul.

Editorial Reviews

Review

In his lush new memoir, the religious scholar Smith dances among the whirling dervishes in Iran, camps with the Aborigines in Australia, shares a chuckle with a gaggle of Masai warriors on the darkening Serengeti plains. Each anecdote reveals Smith’s sense of marvel at the strange bounty of the world (Washington Post Book World )

Smith . . . [has a gaze that] bespeaks mischief, curiosity, bluntness and wonder . . . In an age of generalized fear and “just say no,” Smith, who taught for years at Berkeley, a venerated figure there, has said “yes” to life’s possibilities. (San Jose Mercury News )

“Tales of Wonder brims with fascinating insights and tidbits.” (Boston Globe )

In this delightful autobiography, Smith tells us how he became the dean of world religions. Intellectual playfulness is definitely the spirit with which this book was written. Right to his final act, Smith is proving to be the consummate professor, giving us a valuable master class on faith and life. (San Francisco Chronicle Book Review )

“Remarkably brief and humbly written for a man of Smith’s fame and accomplishment, Tales deals simply with his life and his encounters with the great and the good (Eleanor Roosevelt, D.T. Suzuki, and Frithjof Schuon, to name a few). Highly recommended.” (Library Journal )

“Smith parts the curtain on his past and says, “Look!” with the enthusiasm of a child--something he has not yet lost at age 90. The result is a joyous romp with a favorite uncle among holy places and mystics--the most interesting of them the author of the book.” (Publishers Weekly )

Poignant and readable, Smith recounts professional adventures—meeting Martin Luther King Jr.,befriending Aldous Huxley and the Dalai Lama, dropping acid with Timothy Leary . . . this is what it feels like to have lived a long and interesting life. (Newsweek )

Smith has long been our clearest and most radiant explorer of all the world’s great religions. Thank heavens for such wisdom, delivered with light and fire! (—Pico Iyer )

My admiration for Huston Smith’s work is boundless. With each new book I have been astonished, edified, and greatly heartened by his brilliant mind and heart. He is the wisest, sanest religious scholar of them all, and so wonderfully readable. (—Anne Lamott )

Smith is America’s best-loved religion tutor. (—Jack Miles )

One of our foremost scholars and interpreters of the world’s religions . . . What he has learned, he has applied to life. (—Bill Moyers )

Huston Smith is the world’s ambassador to religions everywhere. (—Thomas Moore )

“It is the pulse of Smith’s humanity that breathes life into Tales of Wonder.” (CNN.com )

About the Author

Huston Smith is internationally known and revered as the premier teacher of world religions. He is the focus of a five-part PBS television series with Bill Moyers and has taught at Washington University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Syracuse University, and the University of California at Berkeley. The recipient of twelve honorary degrees, Smith's fifteen books include his bestselling The World's Religions, Why Religion Matters, and his autobiography, Tales of Wonder.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: HarperLuxe (May 19, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061669040
• ISBN-13: 978-0061669040
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,672,475 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Huston Cummings Smith (born May 31, 1919) is among the preeminent religious studies scholars in the United States. His work, The Religions of Man (later revised and retitled The World's Religions), is a classic in the field, with over two million copies sold, and it remains a common introduction to comparative religion.

Smith was born in Soochow, China, to Methodist missionaries and spent his first 17 years there. He taught at the Universities of Colorado and Denver from 1944 to 1947, moved to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, for the next 10 years, and then served as professor of Philosophy at MIT from 1958 to 1973. While at MIT, he participated in some of the experiments with entheogens that professor Timothy Leary conducted at Harvard University. Smith then moved to Syracuse University, where he was Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Philosophy until his retirement in 1983 and current emeritus status. He now lives in the Berkeley, California, area where he is Visiting Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

During his career, Smith not only studied but also practiced Vedanta Hinduism, Zen Buddhism (under Goto Zuigan), and Sufism for over 10 years each. He is a notable autodidact.

As a young man, of his own volition after suddenly turning to mysticism, Smith set out to meet with then-famous author Gerald Heard. Heard responded to Smith's letter, invited him to Trabuco College (later donated as the Ramakrishna Monastery) in Southern California, and then sent him off to meet the legendary Aldous Huxley. So began Smith's experimentation with meditation and his association with the Vedanta Society in Saint Louis under the auspices of Swami Satprakashananda of the Ramakrishna order.

Via the connection with Heard and Huxley, Smith eventually experimented with Timothy Leary and others at the Center for Personality Research, of which Leary was research professor. The experience and history of that era are captured somewhat in Smith's book Cleansing the Doors of Perception. In this period, Smith joined in on the Harvard Project as well, in an attempt to raise spiritual awareness through entheogenic plants.

He has been a friend of the XIVth Dalai Lama for more than 40 years, and has met and talked to some of the great figures of the century, from Eleanor Roosevelt to Thomas Merton.

Smith developed an interest in the Traditionalist School formulated by Rene Guenon and Ananda Coomaraswamy. This interest has become a continuing thread in all his writings.

In 1996 Bill Moyers devoted a five-part PBS special to Smith's life and work: The Wisdom of Faith with Huston Smith. Smith has also produced three series for public television: The Religions of Man, The Search for America, and (with Arthur Compton) Science and Human Responsibility.

His films on Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, and Sufism have all won awards at international film festivals. His latest DVD release is The Roots of Fundamentalism--A Conversation with Huston Smith and Phil Cousineau.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What I would like to be like when I grow up, August 1, 2009

By 

Charles T. Tart (Berkeley, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine, an Autobiography (Hardcover)

Thursday afternoon I received Huston Smith's just-published autobiography, Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine, in the mail. Friday morning I'd finished reading it, and would have done so Thursday night were it not for the ordinary life necessities of sleep, a committee meeting and a dental appointment to go to first thing in the morning. I can't remember the last time I was so fascinated by a book that I read it at a single sitting: this is good!

Huston Smith has just turned 90, and has long been my model for what I'd like to be like when I grow up. He is a gentlemen, a scholar, and one of, if not the, world's greatest authorities on the religions of the world. His classic book The World's Religions has introduced millions of readers to what's good in the religions of the world. While he has the accuracy and objectivity we expect from a professor, though, he doesn't have the dryness or too common air of intellectual superiority, because he actually spent years practicing each of the religions he writes about, to gain direct experiential knowledge of what's good in them.

Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine is a series of intimate and inspiring glimpses of a wonderful man - and his wife Kendra, who is very much a part of the story, keeping him grounded in reality - as he pursues meaning and the good life in modern times. Raised by missionary parents in China, he feels he is basically a Christian, as well as a member of the world's other major religions. When you get to the bottom line, though, his religion, like that of his friend His Holiness the Dalai Lama, is kindness....I can't praise him or his book highly enough...

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reflections on a life well and richly lived, May 14, 2009

By 

William J. Parkhurst (Sheffield, Alabama USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine, an Autobiography (Hardcover)

Dr. Huston Smith is a world treasure who rightly deserves high praise as one of the world's foremost religious scholars, teachers and adepts. This autobiographic, life-to-date, story reflects a passion for his calling which is inspiring, wistful and laced with religious and personal epiphanies and profundities.

A self-professed Methodist missionary family "favorite," the description of his early life in Dzang Zok, China, and his early academic life as a high-achiever at Central Methodist College in Missouri are particularly enjoyable. This story provides readers a compelling glimpse of the whole person (and family) and provides readers with insight as to why he does what he does. Dr. Smith reflects upon his own life story with the same enthusiasm, openness and critical thinking that pervade his academic endeavors.

Dr. Smith is quick to give credit where credit is due. Not only to his teachers - who comprise a veritable "who's who" of 20th century religious, social and philosophic leaders - but also to his wife and best friend Kendra and their three daughters who allowed him to follow his enthusiasms while keeping the home fires burning. Dr. Smith acknowledges the trade-offs between his personal and professional life and yet, with wisdom and reflection, lets us know that as he approaches his 90th birthday that he would probably do it all over again. As his own borrowed final words echo "Thanks for everything! Praise for it all!"

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Rewarding Read, June 29, 2009

By 

Van Isle Rev (Vancouver Island, British Columbia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine, an Autobiography (Hardcover)

This is a delightful book, although one that is most likely to please those already familiar with Huston Smith. Smith divides this memoir into two sections. In the first section (dealing with the "horizontal" dimension of his life), Smith provides a broadly sketched outline of his eventful life, including chapters dealing with his childhood in China, his education in America, his life as an academic and his life as a husband and father. In the second section (dealing with life's "vertical" dimension) Smith seeks to illuminate the numerous influences that have shaped his characteristic take on life's spiritual and religious realities. Especially moving is the book's brief epilogue in which Smith reflects upon his "state of being" at the approach of his 90th birthday; many of the books outstanding insights (and most poignant passages) are packed into these final dozen or so pages. Be clear that Tales of Wonder is not at the level of, say, Augustine's Confessions; readers looking for that sort of autobiography are advised to look elsewhere. Nor are readers familiar with Smith's philosophy likely to find startlingly new insights in these pages. But for those who would like to catch a thoughtful /gently reflective "behind the scenes" glimpse of "the spiritual explorer who brought the world's religions to the west", Tales of Wonder comes highly recommended.