Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living

Artful listening is Tippett's (Einstein's God) trademark. Her mellifluous voice, adored by listeners of her radio program and podcast On Being, floats off the pages of this deftly woven collection of interviews. For over a decade, Tippett has interviewed "geniuses in the art of living": scientists, philosophers, poets, playwrights, theologians%E2%80%94anyone who delves deeply into what it means to be human. "I love the deep savvy about hope that religion tends," she writes, "its reverence for the undervalued virtue of beauty, its seriousness about the common human experience of mystery. Our spiritual lives are where we reckon head-on with the mystery of ourselves, and the mystery of each other." But this is not just a selection of greatest hits. Instead, rooted in Tippett's own keen insight, she provides an interlocking frame based on five themes: words, the body, love, faith, and hope. With dips into Tippett's childhood and early career, readers are embraced by her own struggle, vulnerability, and thirst for meaning. As researcher and TED-talk phenom Bren%C3%A9 Brown told Tippett, "Hope is a function of struggle." Tippett's striving here is the grist for creative genius. (Apr.)