Augustine's Confessions A biography

Here's an early entry in a new series a creative one focusing on so-called biographies of influential religious books. Like a biography of a person, this volume takes Augustine's Confessions and traces its birth, growth and decline, and legacy. Since so much of an author's life is connected to his or her work especially in the case of Confessions this can't help but include a decent amount of Augustine's own bio. Wills, who has written both a biography of Augustine and a translation of Confessions, must scale back his content for a package that's only slightly larger than a pocket guide. That's made easier because he clearly has a general audience in mind and assumes his readers have little knowledge of the work. In a concise fashion, he covers why and how Confessions came to be. He also devotes a chapter each to the book's genre, its hinge, its culmination, and what he calls its conversion and baptismal days. The final chapter deals with the book's reception through the years. Very readable and highly engaging.--Osburn, Wade Copyright 2010 Booklist

Wills (history, emeritus, Northwestern Univ.; Lincoln at Gettysburg) does for Augustine's Confessions what he did for the Gettysburg Address, which is to take a well-known iconic work and examine it with fresh eyes. He views the Confessions as a book haunted by Genesis, and this perspective allows him to notice things that are overlooked by commentators whose views are preformed by the interpretive tradition. Having translated the Confessions and written a biography of Augustine, Wills is not afraid to go out on a limb, and so even readers who would not agree with his often cheeky interpretations are forced to look at the work afresh. After considering the text itself, Wills considers its influence over the years and the various interpretations (e.g., psychological, postmodern) of the work. -VERDICT James J. O'Donnell's Augustine: A New Biography is a similarly cheeky book that rebels against much of the received wisdom about Augustine's life. Wills offers an iconoclastic interpretation of a classic work, one that deserves a fresh treatment every few years.-Augustine J. Curley, Newark Abbey, NJ (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.