Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding, worthwhile, best I've read
Review: This book is one of the best I've read in a very long time. Ms. Armstrong's account of her life after leaving the convent and her search for her life's meaning was compelling and beautifully written. I learned so much from her struggle and her courage. Such difficulties could have led many people to suicide, but she toughed it out and never gave up. In the end, her reward and ours was a life lived in study, comtemplation, and sharing her wisdom through her writing. Anyone who has ever grappled with the meaning of religion and life will benefit from reading this book. It reads like a novel and will draw you in as it did me. Thank you Karen Armstrong for this beautiful, heartfelt memoir. I absolutely loved your book.
Rating: 
Summary: Around and around
Review: This is a good read. I've tried for years to follow a religious path but it always seemed beyond me. I finally gave up and am a confirmed atheist. But I'm also a confirmed believer in compassion as the only way to live. If compassion is religion, then I'm religious. Ms. Armstrong would say that compassion is religion. This book is funny, charming, frustrating and uplifting -- it's a good read and is worth the trouble. I've read some of her other books but this is the first of her autobiographic works that I have read. I recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: Courage,determination and strength
Review: This is one of those books. An autobiography/memoir style of book that shows the deep determination,strength and courage it took to not only live through the ordeals and traumas but to be able to write about them is astounding to say the least. This book reminds me somewhat of "Nghtmares Echo" with its determination and courage to push on through to the other side. It is spiritually awakening like that of "Beauty For ashes"...but no matter what book you compare this too..."The Spiral Staircase" is a must read.Chrissy Dillard-Reviewer
Rating:
Summary: So enriching, so mature, but Karen, where are your feelings?
Review: This review considers the CD audio. Such a wonderful experience to hear Karen read her own words about her own life. I had read her first autobiography, Through the Narrow Gate, so I found that the first expositions were a bit repetitive, without a clear new insight -though the second book has been written many years later. I love Karen Armstrong, because I can really relate to her yearning for God, to her sufferings emanating from struggling with Catholicism, the world and herself, to her persistance and to the confusion of not knowing if the world is misunderstanding you or if you are simply misunderstanding yourself. Her last chapters are mind-blowing. There is a giant leap to new and enlightening considerations and, in this leap, I feel that Karen has been courageous and admirable. The only regret that I feel is that I would have liked to hear Karen speak more about her intimacies and the feelings that go with them. Very briefly and very superficially does she mention aspects of sexuality and intimate relationships...subjects that are fundamental in the portrait of a human being. This is, after all, an autobiography. The beautifully exposed concluding chapter is, in itself, a reason to want to buy the book, after having heard this audio CD. Comments may be addressed to rherrero@club-internet.fr.
Rating:
Summary: a gem of truth in a muddy land
Review: Ths book should be required reading for all those making our foreign policy in this country, for all religious leaders, all religious people, all atheists, and all those who are not sure. It should be required of all those claiming certainty, all those claiming self-satisfaction and all those condemning others for their beliefs. If only ten-percent of our population had reached a level of spiritual maturity near that of Ms. Armstrong's we would have far fewer problems in this world. If just one-third of people ever came to realize, as she did, that our belief-system/religion/spirituality is an unending path, not a fait-accompli, we would be well on our way to a society we could all be proud of, instead of one we just shake our heads at.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Intentions Lead To?
Review: To finish the title: NOW HOW DID THAT OLD SAYING GO? I am sorry to burst the Armstrong bubble. I know many people are enamored by Karen's writings. She is a "feel-good" author, a step up from the likes of Deepak Chopra. Armstrong is the perfect theologian for the modern religious liberal. She tells them what their itching ears long to hear. "It doesn't really matter what you believe as long as you believe." And the religious lemmings follow their leader joyfully to the cliff! Karen indulges herself and her feckle fans: people who seek religiousity without commitment, scholarship without dogma, spirituality without God. If that is what you want or are seeking, fine. Just don't try and pass it off as a rigorous faith. Call it what it is: fence-walking. You can't be agnostic believer. Enough of the vague, self-made theology. Please!!!!!! If you're an atheist or agnostic, fine. Just have the guts to admit it. Don't go around calling yourself a liberal (unorthodox) Christian. If you want a rigorous, orthodox faith, may I suggest you check out Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship," followed by Martin Luther's "Large Catechism".
Rating:
Summary: An Enduring Spiritual Classic
Review: Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. John 12:24
This is a wonderful book, destined to become an enduring spiritual biography, a "Confessions" from the turn of the second Christian millennium. Through her life and experiences Ms. Armstrong provides a dispatch from the frontlines where spirituality meets medical science, pop culture meets age-old institutions and women's growing sense of spiritual self-consciousness confronts an inflexible and ossified religious order.
The book is intensely personal. For my taste, too personal at times. Even so, one gets a real sense of being there with her, throughout her life's journey, even to the point of feeling the weight of lugging groceries home without benefit of a car. (Been there, done that!)
Random musings and notes:
- Armstrong first put me on to the work of Henri Corbin, whom she extols in her annotated bibliography in "The History of God." I just wonder what she makes of the imaginal realm now that her visions are known to stem from epilepsy.
- The drama of her academic career is heartbreaking in the extreme. My wife just finished her dissertation in Bronze Age Aegean archaeology and is preparing to defend. As much as I want her to read this book, it may prove too much. If you are an aspiring academic, proceed with caution!
- It seems to me that after losing her way through life's labyrinth time and again, the Ariadne's thread that enabled her to find her way was keeping a journal. Note to self: start writing a journal.
- Toward the end, I really hoped she would not go in the "follow your bliss" direction, but she did. As much as I admire Armstrong, Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell (whom I once heard lecture - amazing guy) this bit of advice has never worked all that well for me. Naturally I found this annoying.
- Two especially vivid passages have stayed with me during the months since I read this book:
The clawing sense of loneliness.
The God-shaped hole in Consciousness.
Karen, I'm a huge fan. I wish we could get together and chat. I'll bring the wine.
About the book, I only wish I could say more. Most highly recommended.
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