Description: Thoughts in Solitude is a book of meditatioins, thoughtful and eloquent, as timely (or timeless) now as when America's most famous monk, Thomas Merton, originally wrote them.
Brief description: Thomas Merton (1915-1968) is one of the foremost spiritual thinkers of the twentieth century. Though he lived a mostly solitary existence as a Trappist monk, he had a dynamic impact on world affairs through his writing. An outspoken proponent of the antiwar and civil rights movements, he was both hailed as a prophet and castigated for his social criticism. He was also unique among religious leaders in his embrace of Eastern mysticism, positing it as complementary to the Western sacred tradition. Merton is the author of over forty books of poetry, essays, and religious writing, including Mystics and Zen Masters, and The Seven Story Mountain, for which he is best known. His work continues to be widely read to this day.
Review Quotes: "The writing itself, uniformly high in quality, seems one great burst of energy--the lifeward push of a man who loved cities and people but who loved solitude and God more, and who found a tolerable midpoint when he was alone and writing to somebody." - The New Yorker