The Wisdom of Memoir: Reading and Writing Life's Sacred Texts [Paperback]

Peter Gilmour (Author), Carl Koch (Editor), Joy Wallace (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1997

Peter Gilmour examines the literary genre of the memoir in human experience and religious tradition, exploring memoir's contribution to spirituality, ending with teaching the reader how to read and write memoirs.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Saint Mary's Press (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0884894274
• ISBN-13: 978-0884894278
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,648,516 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Finding God's Wisdom in our Lives, October 3, 2003

By 

Timothy Kearney (Haverhill, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wisdom of Memoir: Reading and Writing Life's Sacred Texts (Paperback)

All a person has to do is look at the best seller list, walk into a bookstore, or see the current crop of books offered by Amazon.com too see that memoirs are very popular. Though many would technically be in the category of autobiography, this is not always the best fit because in many cases these books focus on a few specific memories rather than an entire life, and often offer a lesson learned from the experience, that I suppose could put many of these books in a self help category as well.

For people who are reading these memoirs from a spiritual point of view, Peter Gilmour's THE WISDOM OF MEMOIR is very helpful. The book helps a reader see God at work in people's lives. While some of the memoirs Gilmour highlights are religious or spiritual in nature, others are not. Gilmour gives many of these works an added dimension by looking at them from a religious point of view. By looking at these spiritual aspects of religious and non-religious biography and memoir, we can apply and see these things in our won lives. While the book does not specifically talk about writing a memoir the way a writing book may, it does offer advice for people who keep journals as a spiritual practice.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars learning about our past puts life into perspective, September 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Wisdom of Memoir: Reading and Writing Life's Sacred Texts (Paperback)

from Praying, no.81, p. 31: "Peter Gilmour has written an important book. As we near the end of the twentieth century we look around us, and everywhere we see shattered institutions, families, communities and individual souls. Only contact with the sacred and holy can motivate us to go out into our neighborhoods, our society and our world and begin the necessary repairs and healing. When we find the holy breath and spirit of God in our own daily life and living then there is real hope for dynamism and transcendence."