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Staff Pick
Krista Tippett, host of the public radio program On Being, distills the wisdom she has heard and experienced into a thoughtful exploration of the things that challenge us, and the things that comfort us along the way. Without oversimplifying, she returns to what we have in common, what we all share in the grand adventure of life. Recommended By Mary Jo S., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
"I'm not sure there's such a thing as the cultural 'center, ' nor that it's very interesting if it exists. But left of center and right of center, in the expansive middle and heart of our life together, most of us have some questions left alongside our answers, some curiosity alongside our convictions. This book is for people who want to take up the great questions of our time with imagination and courage, to nurture new realities in the spaces we inhabit, and to do so expectantly and with joy."
First published in hardcover in April 2016, Becoming Wise spoke with prescience to deepening social fractures. Yet as the book also reveals, fracture is not the whole story of our time. Krista explores how wisdom emerges through the raw materials of the everyday – the words we use, the bodies we inhabit, the many kinds of love we know, the faith we carry, the reality-based hope we can choose. She insists on the possibility of virtue in personal life and common life, with civility and love as muscular public practices. And, accompanied by a cross-disciplinary dream team of a teaching faculty, she shows us how.
Calling Becoming Wise one of the best books of the year, Maria Popova of Brainpickings wrote,
"Krista Tippett [is] a modern-day Simone Weil.... Becoming Wise is a tremendously vitalizing read in its totality — a wellspring of nuance and dimension amid our Flatland of artificial polarities, touching on every significant aspect of human life with great gentleness and a firm grasp of human goodness."
Review
"I am a great admirer of Krista Tippett, who has spent years using her mind as a gentle but probing research tool into the beautiful, perilous, mysterious realm of the human soul. With this book, she has gathered all her years of learning and listening to create a masterpiece of philosophical and spiritual reflection. About halfway through the book, I stopped flagging pages and highlighting passages when I realized I was highlighting nearly every word. This entire book is filled with things I never want to forget. The only remedy will be to keep it near me, always." Elizabeth Gilbert
Review
"This is not just a selection of greatest hits. Instead, rooted in Tippett’s own keen insight, she provides an interlocking frame based on five themes: words, the body, love, faith, and hope. With dips into Tippett’s childhood and early career, readers are embraced by her own struggle, vulnerability, and thirst for meaning. As researcher and TED-talk phenom Brené Brown told Tippett, 'Hope is a function of struggle.' Tippett’s striving here is the grist for creative genius." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"Becoming Wise challenges all forms of dogma, in science, politics and philosophy as well as religion, and it affirms the holiness of the body and the glory of the inquiring mind. While our dominant media suggest that humans are incorrigibly selfish and greedy and cruel, Tippett and her conversation partners demonstrate that the longing to lead a good life, a moral life, remains powerful and pervasive in our day…." Washington Post
Review
"If you measure the worth of a book by the volume of scribbles you pen in the margins, the stars emphatically drawn, and the sentences underlined, Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living — a compendium of wisdom, at once intimate and expansive — stands a serious shot of emerging both splattered and cherished. Tippett, the Peabody Award-winning radio host and National Humanities Medalist, is a master of what she terms 'generous listening,' an act 'powered by curiosity,' and a 'willingness to be surprised, to let go of assumptions and take in ambiguity.'" Chicago Tribune
About the Author
Krista Tippett is a Peabody Award-winning broadcaster and New York Times bestselling-author. In 2014, she received the National Humanities Medal at the White House for "thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence." She is the host of NPR’s On Being.