Beautiful and inspirational.
I read it many years ago and want to read it again.

Rating only for the information and lovely descriptions of the standing stones. Author is an insufferable prick.

Makes me want to go traipsing through the countryside of the Scottish Highlands.

Great book by one of my favorite spiritual authors. I enjoyed reading and many concepts rang true and posted interesting questions. But the book felt incredibly long so paradoxically it detracted from its enjoyment even though each chapter on its own was unique and interesting.

I cannot explain how interesting it is to read about certain parts of the life of this author (especially where he speaks about his infidelity and the strength of his marriage at that point - knowing that they got divorced 10years after the publication of this book and a year before his death). But this is no gleefulness on my side - what I enjoy about these facts is exactly what Peck says in his book: an imperfect spiritual example is better than one we cannot reach (in my own words), and Peck make sure to emphasise that he have many faults.
Many of his other ideas in this book is great spiritual food. However, I wish I could see Scotland and the stones for myself - it sound absolutely wonderful.

I think a lot of people don't understand Dr Peck. He's books are totally unconventional. This one particular I enjoyed the most. I'm not yet done with it but I should finish it before the end of this week. I love how he talks about issues such religion, politics, relationships, money, romantic love . He's addicted to nicotine and smoked while praying hahaha Strange I know, but I like that. Personally, he has taught me things in two weeks that I would have learned for a life time.

Peck is one of those writers who has the gift of taking two disparate and seemingly unrelated items and linking them in unimagined ways. Transforming a journey through the UK looking at standing stones and other Bronze Age structures into an inner spiritual pilgrimage is a connection that most modern humans do not make.

In fact, archeological research in the past 20 or 30 years has come to the same conclusion, that our very ancient forebears built sacred structures in sequences intended to lead a seeker along both an inner and outer path.

How many of us today can see the sacred among our own "stones?" Read this book and you may develop the ability, or not. The quest is the thing. Put another way, fishing isn't really about catching fish. :-)

This book just made feel bad for his wife due to his arrogance in a lot of topics he doesn't understand at all and his casual regard for his past affairs that are only in the past because of his lack of energy....

This one's a front runner for the worst book I ever read. It is badly researched and poorly written. The author and his wife travel around Britain, finally deciding that they want to visit ancient places, stone circles and the like. Apparently, after communing with each place for a bit, he's able to divine whether the place is 'good' or 'bad'. An example: they visit a farm, but before they get out of the car, they notice rodents impaled on the barbed wire fence around the field they park next to. The description of the farm then takes on a sinister tone, and they decide instantly that this is obviously a 'bad' place, most likely evil, in fact. Without further ado, they turn the car around and drive away in fear and trembling.
Rat and mole catchers the world over (yes, Dr Peck, even in your country!) impale the rodents they catch on barbed wire to demonstrate that they are, in fact, doing their job. It is not a signal of evil, but of a worker wanting to be paid.
As they head off into Scotland, the author blithely states that Scotland is bigger than England and Wales combined. What map was he using to make such a baldly incorrect statement?
The book is the testament of an ignorant tourist who has no conception of any culture outside his own, and clearly has no intention of doing anything other than making unfavourable comparisons of where he is to his home, where everything is perfect, of course.
I have never in my life thrown a book in the bin, but I made an exception for this abysmal drivel.

The author, a psychiatrist, is famous for his 1978 world-wide multi-millions-selling pop psychology book The Road Less Traveled.

This later book (written ten years before he died in 2005) is also mostly pop psychology, pop philosophy and meditations in quite a potpourri of styles that is pretty good in part because of that wide variety. It’s also to a large extent the author’s autobiography in which he confesses things such as his marital infidelities amounting to almost a sexual addition. His wife took her pleasures from literature and suffered black, deadly depressions. He doesn’t come across to me as very apologetic or sincere in his “I’m sorry these things happened and that I hurt people” type of explanation.



The book’s title and the chapter titles are out of sync. Yes, the story is framed around a long trip in search of dolmens and stone circles in England, Scotland and Wales, but look at the chapter titles: Money, Death, Romance, Pilgrimage, Peace, Art, Consideration, etc.

Each chapter has its own approach to its topic. Religion is not a story of his own Christian convictions and conversions but basically a brief history of the development of various Protestant sects. Whereas the chapter on Finance is literally about the business side of his empire as an author and world-wide speaker right down to how much he charged for speaking engagements.

And yes we get a lot about stones with archaeology and some geology. Often he and his wife are searching for stones that locals don’t even know about. There is constant rain, unmarked roads, missed ferries to the islands, getting lost in woods and then enjoying fine wine and a smiley waitress at the B&B. The stone stories are mixed in with legends of King Arthur and Merlin.



Here are some examples of the type of content and the style of writing:

In the chapter on Aging: “Yet another kind of stripping away is that of interests. It began with the Dark Night of the Senses, that stripping away of some of my appetite for beauty and art and elegance. Television bores me. Very few books - poetry, novels, words of wisdom - hold my attention for long. I feel as if I’ve read it all before, and in a sense I have. Into this vacuum of my mind our sudden fascination for stones has come as a surprising, most wonderful gift. But this, too, shall probably pass, and the day will likely come when a great standing stone will look merely like a rock. For the moment, however, I am grateful.”

In the chapter Parenthood, I have to give the author credit for candor, if nothing else. For a guy who is a famous psychiatrist and philosopher, listen to him talk about his own children: “So why should I be surprised that our own children at ages 23, 30 and 31, all successful in their own right and financially independent, are very angry with me for unclear reasons and giving both of us clear messages that they want us to keep our distance from them? Particularly since Lily and I are strong-willed people who would also run their lives if we could, albeit with the very best of intentions?...Instead, in their presence, we feel we must walk on eggs. Our most idle remarks or facial expressions may evoke their scorn or precipitate a hurtful silence.”

In the chapter on Time: “We measure time by space and space by times. Indeed, time can best be defined as a change of space. It is the changing spatial relationship of the sun and the earth that determines whether it is morning, midday, evening, or night….The clock….can tell time by the way its hands move through space. …Conversely, we often measure space by time. It is valuable to know that Lily and I are a hundred miles away from Culloden House….It is a more valuable measurement to say the we are a two-hour drive away from our destination.”

On Gratitude: “So we have these three words: grace, gratis, and gratitude. They flow into one another. Perceive grace and you will naturally feel grateful. We did not earn this morning’s great stone. We hadn’t even spotted it on a map and gone off in search of it. We didn’t lift a finger. It was simply there for us, glittering in the sunlight, and we were profoundly grateful.”

On Holiness: “Some Catholics have a concept I much admire: the Sacrament of the Present Moment. It suggests that every moment of our lives is sacred, and that we should make of each moment a sacrament. Were we to do this we would think of the entire world as diffused with holiness…Occasionally I remember to strive for it, but I never achieve it. While I intellectually acknowledge that everyone and every place may be holy, I actually go around experiencing the holy in very few places and people.”



Being a geographer, I liked the travelogue-stones part of the book best. My edition has dozens of sketches of the stones. I won’t read more by this author because he seems to be a guy who gives advice but was never able to get his own act together. 3.5 rounded to 4.

Top photo, Standing Stones of Callandish, Isle of Lewis, Scotland from framepool.com
Middle photo, the Eagle Stone, Scotland from librarylink.highland.gov.uk
Photo of the author from mscottpeck.com

This book is lovely written - small vigniettes on various points of interest - a celebration of life, curiosity and humor.

I really enjoyed reading this novel. It was very thought provoking as well as an interesting trip of discovery.