The Noonday Demon

The author offers a look at depression, drawing on his own battle with the illness and interviews with fellow sufferers, researchers, and doctors to assess the disease's complexities, causes, symptoms, and available therapies.

The noonday devil is the demon of acedia, the vice also known as sloth. The word “sloth”, however, can be misleading, for acedia is not laziness; in fact it can manifest as busyness or activism. Rather, acedia is a gloomy combination of weariness, sadness, and a lack of purposefulness. It robs a person of his capacity for joy and leaves him feeling empty, or void of meaning Abbot Nault says that acedia is the most oppressive of demons. Although its name harkens back to antiquity and the Middle Ages, and seems to have been largely forgotten, acedia is experienced by countless modern people who describe their condition as depression, melancholy, burn-out, or even mid-life crisis. He begins his study of acedia by tracing the wisdom of the Church on the subject from the Desert Fathers to Saint Thomas Aquinas. He shows how acedia afflicts persons in all states of life— priests, religious, and married or single laymen. He details not only the symptoms and effects of acedia, but also remedies for it.

The debut novel, first published nearly twenty years ago, from the National Book Award-winning author of The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression and Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity--a luminous and moving evocation of the love between a son and his mother. A finalist for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction prize, A Stone Boat is an achingly beautiful, deeply perceptive story of family, sexuality, and the startling changes wrought by grief, loss, and self-discovery. Harry, an internationally celebrated young concert pianist, travels to Paris to confront his glamorous and formidable mother about her dismay at his homosexuality. Before he can give voice to his hurt and anger, he discovers that she is terminally ill. In an attempt to escape his feelings of guilt and despair over the prospect of her death, he embarks on several intense affairs--one with a longtime female friend--that force him to question his capacity for love, and finally to rediscover it. Part eulogy, part confession, and part soliloquy on forgiveness, A Stone Boat is a luminous evocation of the destructive and regenerative, all-encompassing love between a son and his mother, by America's foremost chronicler of personal and familial resilience.

In this stirring volume R. R. Reno a thoughtful, literate writer with a zest for physical and theological adventure looks back on his time working in the oil fields of Wyoming, his quests to the heights of Yosemite and the ice cliffs of the French Alps, his daughter s bat mitzvah, and more, rendering seven diverse fragments of life in energetic prose. Fighting the Noonday Devil resounds with Reno s depth of feeling and regard for the tangible things of life. Through these narratives, vignettes, and reflections he shows that it is the real-life manifestations of love and loyalty far beyond intellectual abstractions or theories that train us for true piety. Whether defending Jack Kerouac, describing work on a drilling rig, or narrating his reception into the Roman Catholic Church, Rusty Reno brings a writer s eye and a theologian s heart to the essayist s labors. Many rewards await the reader of this book. Alan Jacobs author of Wayfaring and The Narnian R. R. Reno s essays are intellectually stimulating, and some even possess cinematic possibilities. I find their Augustinian ethos deeply appealing in their consistent combination of wisdom and eloquence. David K. Naugle author of Reordered Love, Reordered Lives: Learning the Deep Meaning of Happiness In this smart and sparkling collection R. R. Reno applies his consummate literary skills to subjects as diverse as acedia, mountain climbing, religious conversion, Jack Kerouac, and interfaith marriage, uniting them under a single glorious banner, that of reclaiming the essential function of culture, the cultivation of the soul. A bravura performance. Philip Zaleski coauthor of Prayer: A History Fighting the Noonday Devil is the work of a pious intellect in all the best senses of the term. . . . Reno reads his life in parables in a way that provokes us to see our own lives anew. In him we find a voice and style in the best tradition of Newman incisive, affecting, wise, inviting. I was captivated by this book. James K. A. Smith author of The Devil Reads Derrida and Other Essays on the University, the Church, Politics, and the Arts

How did Thomas Merton become Thomas Merton? Starting out from any one of his earlier major life moments--wealthy orphan boy, big man on campus, fervent Roman Catholic convert, new and obedient monk--we find ourselves asking how by his life's end he had grown from who he was then into a transcultural and transreligious spiritual teacher read by millions. This book takes another such starting point: his attempt in the mid-1950s to move from his abbey of Gethsemani, in Kentucky--a place that had become, in his view, noisy beyond bearing--to an Italian monastery, Camaldoli, which he idealized as a place of monastic peace. The ultimate irony: Camaldoli at that time, bucolic and peaceful outwardly, was inwardly riven by a pre-Vatican II culture war; whereas Gethsemani, which he tried so hard to leave, became, when he was given his hermitage there in 1965, his place to recover Eden. In walking with Merton on this journey, and reading the letters he wrote and received at the time, we find ourselves asking, as he did, with so much energy and honesty, the deep questions that we may well need to answer in our own lives.

We are all tempted by sloth, the sin of being superficial, of ignoring what is good and important in life. This spiritual journey through the Bible, history, and culture exposes sloth and offers tips on how to combat it.

The National Book Award-winning author of The Noonday Demon explores the consequences of extreme personal differences between parents and children, describing his own experiences as a gay child of straight parents while evaluating the circumstances of people affected by physical, developmental or cultural factors that divide families. 150,000 first printing.

It's hard to watch the news, scroll through social media, or listen to the radio without hearing or seeing something disturbing about the climate emergency. This can trigger all sorts of emotions: worry, anger, sadness, guilt, and even grief but also often over-looked positive emotions like motivation, connection, care, and abundance that support mental health and climate action for sustainable longevity. Written by psychologists with extensive experience in treating people with eco-anxiety, this book shows you how to harness these emotions, validate them, and transform them into positive action. It enables you to assess and understand your psychological responses to the climate crisis and move away from unhealthy defence mechanisms, such as denial and avoidance. Ultimately, it shows that the solution to both climate anxiety and the climate crisis is the same - action that is sustainable for you and for the planet - and empowers you to take steps towards this.