On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts Paperback - 2023

The Patron Saint of Restless Hearts

This is not a book about Saint Augustine. In a way, it's a book Augustine has written about each of us.

Popular speaker and award-winning author James K. A. Smith has spent time on the road with Augustine and invites us to join him on this journey with an ancient African thinker who knows far more about us than we might expect. Augustine, says Smith, is the patron saint of restless hearts--a guide who has been there, asked our questions, and knows our frustrations and failed pursuits. Augustine spent a lifetime searching for his heart's true home and he can help us find our way.

"On the Road with Saint Augustine is a learned, large-hearted, and quite lively introduction to Augustine, or to life by way of Augustine, or to God by way of both. The variety of Smith's references is astonishing, as is the seamless way he moves among them. I expect many modern readers will find themselves--and, crucially, much more than themselves--in this book."--Christian Wiman, author of My Bright Abyss and Every Riven Thing

"Augustine of Hippo is the patron saint of restless hearts. Now James K. A. Smith, long one of our most interesting theological thinkers, both orthodox and outlier, reintroduces this figure who is at once strange and familiar, ancient and contemporary. This book is a journey into the greatest journey of all, and a delight to read. Highly recommended."
--Krista Tippett, founder and CEO, The On Being Project; host, On Being; curator, The Civil Conversations Project

"Fascinating, engrossing, insightful, beautifully written, and often brilliant, this new book will open up the story and spirituality of St. Augustine to a new generation of readers and seekers."
--James Martin, SJ, author of Jesus: A Pilgrimage

"Smith opens this book by placing the contemporary culture of seeking the real, authentic self alongside the works of Augustine; then he continues by placing our contemporary experience alongside Augustine's biography; both moves yield a fund of interesting insights."
--Charles Taylor, author of A Secular Age

"By following Augustine's model and sharing his own faith journey, Smith makes Augustine's guidance accessible to a new generation of seekers."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)