John O'Donahue writes beautiful prose. The words all sit in lines like strings of lustrous pearls. This book is no exception to his style and offers the reader a glimpse into an enchanted landscape beyond the everyday.

If you are a materialist and consider consciousness as simply a by-product of brain activity then this book is not for you, but if you have a nagging sense that there IS something more, something precious and wonderful about life and death then John's words will be be a balm to your soul. Savour his words and lose your disenchantment.

Loved it! Sad that O'Donohue is gone but this is a book worth reading and contemplating. Makes me want to go to Ireland.

John writes like a poet. Aside from the section on color which seemed to drag, the book was a true insight to the soul.

This was an inspiring and mesmerizing book to listen to on Audible as it was narrated by John O’Donohue (who passed in 2008). The book is presented in his narration more like a series of talks than a straight reading. His voice has a lyrical cadence and an Irish brogue that will stay with me when I look at the world around me with new eyes, to appreciate the beauty that we live among. It’s as if I can hear his voice narrating the scene around me, pointing out the beauty in everyday life. His words and voice have settled comfortably into my heart.

Despite the odds stacked against me, I finished this one. (The odds? The library due date + my inability to commit to one book at a time.)

“The imagination is both fascinated and stimulated by the presences that cluster within a contradiction. It does not perceive contradiction as the enemy of truth; rather it sees here an interesting intensity. The imagination is always more loyal to the deeper unity of everything. It has patience with contradiction because there it glimpses new possibilities. And the imagination is the great friend of possibility.”

I just love this man and his writing. A tender soul.

I wanted so desperately to love this book. But I didn’t. For no particular reason or fault of the obviously wonderful author. It simply was not my cup of tea.

What an extension of my thinking space! Never thought like this about beauty!

The best book on beauty I've read. O'Donohue has blessed humanity with this astounding and poetic masterpiece. If you're interested in philosophy and theology you'll love it. If you're not, you soon will be. I'd give this 10 stars if I could. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

O'Donohue brings us on a wonderful journey to discover the beauty that surrounds us, which we've known and touched, but perhaps have grown too familiar with. Of course, O'Donohue does not leave us with an external focus. He then dives into the depths of our very being to assist us in discovering the beauty which lives in each one of us. He might even say that beauty is the divine and the divine is revealed in beauty. To touch beauty is to touch the divine, and it is not so very far from the center of our own being.

This is the single book i have read and reread most in my lifetime.
You can open any page....and read until you must stop and contemplate his words...then begin again.

It is beautiful and inspiring. It lifts me when i fall; reminds me of the best of me and to be the best of me. It reminds me of our humanity and to hold compassion.
I will thank John O'Donohue forever.

A long read with a few great insights. I much preferred his podcast interview on On Being by Krista Tippet (best podcast ever!)