Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine, an Autobiography (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From The Washington Post

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Matthew Shaer Midway through his lush new memoir, the religious scholar Huston Smith pauses to rattle off a list of fond remembrances: dancing among the whirling dervishes in Iran, camping with the Aborigines in Australia, sharing a chuckle with a gaggle of Masai warriors on the darkening Serengeti plains. Each anecdote is offered up with minimum explication and just a few choice adjectives, as if Smith's sense of marvel at the strange bounty of the world should suffice. And in most cases, it does. "Tales of Wonder," co-written with Jeffery Paine, opens in the medieval town of Soochow, China, where Smith's parents served as missionaries, and ends, some 200 pages later, with a quote from Saint John Chrysostom: "Praise for everything. Praise for it all!" In between, Smith meets with some of the 20th century's major luminaries -- Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Martin Luther King, Jr. -- and sets out to carve his own name on the face of history. When he was just shy of 40, Smith published his opus, "The World's Religions," a now classic study of comparative theology. Its popularity opened the door to a series of professorial posts and several trips around the globe, each one more spectacular than the last. "For me," confides Smith, now nearly 90, "any real reason to travel, even a bad one, was a good reason to pack my bags and set off. If a place was on the map, and especially if it wasn't, I wanted to go and learn what could be learned only there."
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Review

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 )

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 )

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 )

"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 )

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 )

Huston Smith is the world's ambassador to religions everywhere. (-Thomas Moore )

"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 )

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 )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne (May 12, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061154261
• ISBN-13: 978-0061154263
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #103,941 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 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 (REAL NAME)

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!"

5 of 5 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 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.

4 of 4 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

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...