“A singularly graceful synthesis of memoir and theological explanation… Entrancing… poetically rich.”–Washington Post Book World

“Fascinating … striking … a beautifully successful experiment.”–New York Times Book Review

“A candid self-portrait of a devout man.”–Philadelphia Inquirer

“Strikes to the heart. … Unpreachy meditations on life and Christianity at its most profound.”–People Magazine

“Buechner writes better than almost anyone. … Deep within it, as we read, the sun shines and the constellations rove.”–James Merrill

“Buechner is graceful in story and insights.”–Los Angeles Times

“Buechner is a worthy member of the great prose stylists:  Pascal, Newman, and Merton, who have harnessed their art to a passionate religious faith.”–Louis Auchincloss

“Buechner speaks in a sensitive and quietly humorous voice as he describes crises in his life. … Uncommonly rewarding and inspirational.”–Publishers Weekly

“A meditation on the connection between knowing and sharing secrets and discovering the reality of a loving and merciful God.”–Chicago Tribune

“Buechner’s chronicling once again tells us something about what it means to be human.”–Christianity Today

“Old friends and new readers alike will be delighted. … In this extraordinarily moving and beautifully written memoir, Buechner reflects on life, faith, friendship, and family.”–Bookpage

“In this deeply moving memoir, filled with mortality, gratitude, and joy, Buechner invites us to see (as he has seen) with the eyes of the heart.”–Marcus J. Borg, author of Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time

“Frederick Buechner is one of my favorite writers. The Eyes of the Heart is beautiful and wise, full of insight, charm, and tenderness.”–Anne Lamott

Novelist and storyteller Angela Barry, author of Endangered Species and Other Stories and winner of the Brian Burland Prize for Fiction, will be doing a reading at St. Peter’s Cathedral. Refreshments will be served after the reading.

National Book Award Finalist—Lion Country

O. Henry Award–“The Tiger”

Irene Glascock Prize for Poetry

Rosenthal Award—The Return of Ansel Gibbs

Christianity and Literature Belles Lettres Prize—Brendan

American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters

Christianity Today’s Critic’s Choice Award—Son of Laughter

MLA’s Conference on Christianity and Literature’s Book of the Year—Son of Laughter

Lifetime Achievement Award—Conference on Christianity and Literature

Cornell College, Doctor of Humane Letters

Virginia Theological Seminary, Doctor of Divinity 

The University of the South, Doctor of Philosophy

King’s College, Doctor of Theology

Lafayette College, Doctor of Humane Letters

Lehigh University, Doctor of Literature

Susquehanna University, Doctor of Divinity

Wake Forest University, Doctor of Humane Letters

“One of our most original storytellers”–USA Today

“One of our finest writers”–Annie Dillard, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

“He is one of our great novelists because he is one of our finest religious writers.”–London Free Press

Buechner’s words “have nurtured the lives of untold seekers and followers” through “his capacity to see into the heart of every day.”–The Reverend Samuel Lloyd, Dean of Washington National Cathedral

“Buechner’s theological efforts are … highly literary productions … and the book itself is a thoroughly lyrical piece.”–Theology Today

“In my view, Buechner is doing a distinctively new thing on the literary scene, writing novels that are theologically exciting without becoming propaganda, and doing theology with artistic style and imagination.”–Marjorie Casebier McCoy

“There is a quality of civilized perception here, a sensitive and plastic handling of English prose and an ability to penetrate to the evanescent core of a human situation, all proclaiming major talent.”–New York Times Book Review

“Frederick Buechner is one of our most interesting and least predictable writers. Others might have repeated their success or failures, but he has not. From the sophisticated urban world of that first book, through The Return of Ansel Gibbs with its world of politics and public affairs, to the private, half-haunted pastoral world of The Entrance to Porlock, he has created a series of novels of startlingly different moods and manners, people and places. The one constant has been the masterful use of great stylistic powers to organize and control his highly original and complex vision of life.”–Christopher Isherwood, USA Today

“I have no desire to analyze what makes Buechner’s writing and preaching so extraordinary. Neither do I want to account for Bob Dylan’s raspy mystique, the peculiar beauty of a rainbow trout in a riffle, or a thunderstorm’s magnetic terror. I simply want to enjoy them. They all knock me out of analysis and smack me clear into pleasure and awe.”–Brian D. McLaren, Pastor and author of Everything Must Change

“All on his own, Mr. Buechner has managed to reinvent projects of self-purification and of faith as piquant matter for contemporary fiction, producing in a single decade a quintet of books each of which is individual in concerns and knowledge, and notable for literary finish.”–New York Times Book Review

The Sacred Journey including his writing about Bermuda offer “a rich new vein for Buechner – a kind of detective autobiography” and “[t]he result is a short but fascinating and, in its own terms, beautifully successful experiment.”–Reynolds Price, New York Times

“In our own time, when religion is debased, an electronic game show, an insult to the thirsty soul, Buechner’s novel proves again the power of faith, to lift us up, to hold us straight, to send us on again.”–Washington Post Book Review

“You don’t have to be in the habit of going to church to listen to such a literary minister; you don’t have to be a believer to be moved by Mr. Buechner’s faith.”–John Irving

“When I forget the power of the word, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget the deep relief of telling the truth, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget to look for the holiness all around me, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget why the gospel matters, I read Frederick Buechner.”–Barbara Brown Taylor

“If Frederick Buechner subordinated his nature and chose to write on naughts and nothings, he would still exalt his readers. When he is in representative harmony and writes of the accessibility of God to humanity and of humanity’s agreement with its potential divinity, we, the readers, are lifted up, buoyed up, and promised wholeness. This book is meant to possess, and at the same time liberate, the heart. I’m happy to report it succeeds.”–Maya Angelou