In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

I enjoyed this book, and enjoyed it and enjoyed it. I kept on enjoying it until I had to write a review on Amazon. Seriously, I felt the title was promising at a time when so many lack shelter. So I wandered into it but found it....

This is a wonderful book which I highly recommend. But the print is so small I had to read it with a magnifying glass.

It turns out it is a wonderful little book, but it was not what I was expecting. I thought I was buying a book of poetry. It is mostly prose, with about 6 poems in the whole book. Very thoughtful reflections, though.

Of course when we are talking about books ‘best’ is an inadequate descriptor. I think that what I mean by it here is that this book had a more profound effect on me than any other book I read this year. Put another way, if I had to choose to lose the experience of reading all but one of my 2017 books, this is the one I would save. Reading In the Shelter by Pádraig Ó Tuama is a book which breaks you apart only to put you together again far more whole than you were before. I tried to get at this a bit in my Goodreads review of the book:"This is probably the most powerful book I have read all year. It is, to borrow C.S. Lewis’ summation of “Lord of the Rings”, good beyond hope. The author’s blending of poetry, theology, biography,and story is an artifact too rich to be summarized — it must be experienced. Reading this book will wound, heal, and grow your heart. The author approaches the painful, glorious fact of being one’s self in the world and the inscrutable love of god in a way that will have me coming back and back to this book."The book itself is memoir so laden with philosophical and theological reflection that it could just as easily be classified as a piece of narrative theology or philosophy. Pádraig Ó Tuama has also included poems between chapters in a tacit acknowledgement of the final inability of prose to communicate all that needs to be said. If I were to find that he writes music as well I would pay much to hear him communicate through that medium as well. More than nearly any author I have read Pádraig Ó Tuama brings together a deep wisdom and the beauty of medium. This book is worth reading for so many reasons but here is one reason that would be enough all on it’s own. In In the Shelter the three transcendentals: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty dance together and are as one. After reading it, one does not, quite, feel that any discussion of the relation between those three will be adequately understood by those who have not read it.

Book was in better shape than described and arrived more quickly than promised (I used the slower, cheaper shipping option, not an Amazon Prime member). Very satisfied!

This was recommended to me by the lay assistant at my church. Although I don't share a key determinative factor with the author (or at least it seemed that way to him), I did find much to ponder as he told story after story, a way of locating oneself and making sense of life. There was also some very beautiful poetry which served as connective tissue. The overriding motif was of a single word, 'hello,' the most often repeated word in the book (aside from prepositions and the like). It was like a mantra, tailored to many situations yet all bound up in the idea that life is (or should be) total, and that we should be present in each moment. I did have some issues with how the idea of truth was approached, but overall I feel like this was very valuable to my ongoing faith journey. Perhaps it will be for others as well.

I loved reading this book so much! Early in the book, Ó Tuama talks about how he rereads certain books over and over again. In the Shelter may prove to be such a book for others. His stories and reflections range from linguistics to scripture to simple observations about living life.If I had to recommend one book to someone from the last several years, this would be the book.

As I read I pondered the power of language and the !language of our stories. This book makes me want to listen - to myself and to you!

This book was like looking in a mirror. It describes perfectly how it feels to feel like an imposter in your own religion. It questions the self but also the prejudices of the world. It looks at words, poetry and thought and puts it altogether. I will read it again and again because it is a wonderful question and am excellent answer.

Yes deep but strangely accessible this book is a revealing excursion into language, stories, poems, faith, people and the author himself. Read this book because it truly is unlike anything else you've read. It's brave, it's honest and true.

Liked the immediacy of this book. For anyone wanting to search their faith, it's a good contemporary read. It's very personable and real.

This gentle and honest story of Padraig's journey offers many questions for our own. It's both a gentle and a commanding bookend to be read and savoured in small portions.

I can recommend it enough. Highly inspirational, provocative and full of beauty. You won’t be disappointed =) go for it