Tables in the Wilderness
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more
Flip to back
Flip to front
Tables in the Wilderness: A Memoir of God Found, Lost, and Found Again Hardcover – September 30, 2014
$14.55
FREE Shipping on orders over $35.
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Gift-wrap available.
NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE
Start reading Tables in the Wilderness on your Kindle in under a minute.
Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.
Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?.
|
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Preston Yancey is a lifelong Texan raised Southern Baptist who fell in love with reading saints, crossing himself, and high church spirituality. He now makes his home within the Anglican tradition. He is a writer, painter, baker, and speaker. An alumnus of Baylor University, Preston completed a masters in theology from St. Andrews University in Scotland before returning to the States. He currently lives in Waco, Texas.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By
O. Brown
HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on July 21, 2014
Format: Hardcover
Vine Customer Review of Free Product
(
What's this?
)
Comment
Sending feedback...
*****
This is a mystical, contemplative, and beautifully written spiritual memoir of an intellectual young man who searches with his whole heart after God, first as an undergraduate, and then in graduate school. It is the story of what happened in Preston Yancey's journey of trusting God after God told him that He would be silent. The author is raw and honest with himself and bares his soul about dry times and self-delusion. It is in some ways a sad book, yet still it grabbed me and then wouldn't let go until the end.
The author has keen insight into what the dark night of the soul felt like to him and how it came about. Here is a quote to show you his style of writing about his time with friends pursuing their spirituality at one point: "We were the Israelites trying to take too much manna for one day, but we did not recognize it had not kept and were still eating from it, though it starved us." I really enjoyed his writing style. If you also do, and you enjoy non-fiction with a theological bent, you'll enjoy this; it is not a quick read nor an easy read, especially emotionally, but it's a good read. It is a very atypical book about a Christian journey and I cannot compare it to any other memoir I've read before, as it is unique to my experience.
Highly recommended.
*****
This is a mystical, contemplative, and beautifully written spiritual memoir of an intellectual young man who searches with his whole heart after God, first as an undergraduate, and then in graduate school. It is the story of what happened in Preston Yancey's journey of trusting God after God told him that He would be silent. The author is raw and honest with himself and bares his soul about dry times and self-delusion. It is in some ways a sad book, yet still it grabbed me and then wouldn't let go until the end.
The author has keen insight into what the dark night of the soul felt like to him and how it came about. Here is a quote to show you his style of writing about his time with friends pursuing their spirituality at one point: "We were the Israelites trying to take too much manna for one day, but we did not recognize it had not kept and were still eating from it, though it starved us." I really enjoyed his writing style. If you also do, and you enjoy non-fiction with a theological bent, you'll enjoy this; it is not a quick read nor an easy read, especially emotionally, but it's a good read. It is a very atypical book about a Christian journey and I cannot compare it to any other memoir I've read before, as it is unique to my experience.
Highly recommended.
*****
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By
amazon customer
VINE VOICE on July 10, 2014
Format: Hardcover
Vine Customer Review of Free Product
(
What's this?
)
Comment
Sending feedback...
I really enjoyed this book. Once I started reading, I couldn't put it down. In many ways it's a sad book, but then again it's a hopeful book and exquisitely honest. Anyone who has had their world fall apart; has had doubts about faith creep in with feelings of both loss and emptiness; anyone who has felt that lack of joy in their life...will relate. And I truly believe that at differing times in our lives, that is all of us.
Highly recommended if you want a different, non-evangelical, non rah-rah for God kind of book; if you're sick of hearing that if your story doesn't bubble over with enthusiasm and wonder you are doing the kingdom a grave disservice....then this is the book for you. Because enthusiasm for God comes to us in many different ways, waxing and waning over the years, even when we truly know God is with us. That is the honesty of this book: acknowledging our fragile humanity. So beautifully written - some parts like poetry.
Highly, highly recommended.
Highly recommended if you want a different, non-evangelical, non rah-rah for God kind of book; if you're sick of hearing that if your story doesn't bubble over with enthusiasm and wonder you are doing the kingdom a grave disservice....then this is the book for you. Because enthusiasm for God comes to us in many different ways, waxing and waning over the years, even when we truly know God is with us. That is the honesty of this book: acknowledging our fragile humanity. So beautifully written - some parts like poetry.
Highly, highly recommended.
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By
Reader from Washington, DC
VINE VOICE on August 14, 2014
Format: Hardcover
Vine Customer Review of Free Product
(
What's this?
)
Comment
Sending feedback...
"Tables in the Wilderness" is a Millennial generation spiritual memoir in the tradition of Lauren Winner's "Girl Meets God."
Like Winner's memoir, it describes a college student's search for God during the turmoil of undergraduate school. It would be very useful to Episcopalian and Anglican churches seeking to attract young members, as it minutely describes the author's journey from fundamentalist Baptist to Episcopalian to Anglican while attending Baylor University in Texas -- a university heavily influenced by its Baptist founders -- and St. Andrews University in Scotland.
The book might also appeal to some Millennials dealing with spiritual conflicts.
The memoir has strengths and weaknesses. The strengths include the author's evident passion for Christian theology, history and art, and long struggle to communicate with a God who had suddenly fallen silent.
The book is extremely interesting in both of those areas -- the author's in-depth knowledge of Christian theology, history and art illuminates many of his points. His struggle to reconnect with God -- including buying dozens of prayer books when his own prayers dried up -- is both self-deprecatingly humorous and serious.
The weaknesses include a need to have the memoir edited more because the memoir kept losing flow -- the author starts the book with recent events and then circles back in time to his early years -- the chronology felt unstable and made it difficult to follow his spiritual changes and shifts.
Probably because the author is still very close in time to his years as a student, large parts of the memoir are standard undergraduate stories -- dating, break-ups, friendships, ending friendships, classes, professors, etc., all narrated in great detail.Read more ›
Like Winner's memoir, it describes a college student's search for God during the turmoil of undergraduate school. It would be very useful to Episcopalian and Anglican churches seeking to attract young members, as it minutely describes the author's journey from fundamentalist Baptist to Episcopalian to Anglican while attending Baylor University in Texas -- a university heavily influenced by its Baptist founders -- and St. Andrews University in Scotland.
The book might also appeal to some Millennials dealing with spiritual conflicts.
The memoir has strengths and weaknesses. The strengths include the author's evident passion for Christian theology, history and art, and long struggle to communicate with a God who had suddenly fallen silent.
The book is extremely interesting in both of those areas -- the author's in-depth knowledge of Christian theology, history and art illuminates many of his points. His struggle to reconnect with God -- including buying dozens of prayer books when his own prayers dried up -- is both self-deprecatingly humorous and serious.
The weaknesses include a need to have the memoir edited more because the memoir kept losing flow -- the author starts the book with recent events and then circles back in time to his early years -- the chronology felt unstable and made it difficult to follow his spiritual changes and shifts.
Probably because the author is still very close in time to his years as a student, large parts of the memoir are standard undergraduate stories -- dating, break-ups, friendships, ending friendships, classes, professors, etc., all narrated in great detail.Read more ›
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful
By
N. B. Kennedy
TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on July 16, 2014
Format: Hardcover
Vine Customer Review of Free Product
(
What's this?
)
Comment
Sending feedback...
O, the sturm and drang of youth! Especially of evangelical Christian youth. Preston Yancey writes of the spiritual crisis of his college years at Baylor University, which, if I'm counting correctly, ended a mere three years ago. Overzealousness and disappointment, inflated and crushed egos, rifts between friends, and girls, girls, girls. His is a pretty recognizable experience.
If you like the writing of Donald Miller or Rob Bell, this is your kind of book. The writing is a stream of consciousness style bouncing back and forth between past and present tense, with strings of one-word sentences and one-sentence paragraphs, every word imparted in a tone of hushed urgency. Mr. Yancey wants you to feel his experience more than make sense of it.
What really characterizes a book like this to me is its emphasis on broad-brush emotional scene-setting in place of a strongly crafted narrative with forward momentum. As much as I try to follow an author like this, it always feels to me like a couple in a ballroom dance, one partner doing whatever steps he wants, the other scrambling to follow his whims instead of the dance steps they've learned together. I find it a frustrating experience. Lead me and I will follow! Do your own thing, and I'm apt to drift over to the side and look for another partner.
But readers questioning the spiritual tradition in which they were raised and whether it fits their adult lives might be perfectly happy to be led down Mr. Yancey's winding path.Read more ›
If you like the writing of Donald Miller or Rob Bell, this is your kind of book. The writing is a stream of consciousness style bouncing back and forth between past and present tense, with strings of one-word sentences and one-sentence paragraphs, every word imparted in a tone of hushed urgency. Mr. Yancey wants you to feel his experience more than make sense of it.
What really characterizes a book like this to me is its emphasis on broad-brush emotional scene-setting in place of a strongly crafted narrative with forward momentum. As much as I try to follow an author like this, it always feels to me like a couple in a ballroom dance, one partner doing whatever steps he wants, the other scrambling to follow his whims instead of the dance steps they've learned together. I find it a frustrating experience. Lead me and I will follow! Do your own thing, and I'm apt to drift over to the side and look for another partner.
But readers questioning the spiritual tradition in which they were raised and whether it fits their adult lives might be perfectly happy to be led down Mr. Yancey's winding path.Read more ›
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Most Recent Customer Reviews
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
