{"product_id":"the-spiral-staircase-my-climb-out-of-darkness-9780385721271","title":"The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eNATIONAL BESTSELLER - \u003c\/b\u003eThe \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eA History of God\u003c\/i\u003e delivers the gripping, inspirational story about her own search for God. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"A story about becoming human, being recognized, finally recognizing oneself.... It fills the reader with hope.\" --\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Washington Post Book World\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eIn 1962, at age seventeen, Karen Armstrong entered a convent, eager to meet God. After seven brutally unhappy years as a nun, she left her order to pursue English literature at Oxford. But convent life had profoundly altered her, and coping with the outside world and her expiring faith proved to be excruciating. Her deep solitude and a terrifying illness-diagnosed only years later as epilepsy--marked her forever as an outsider. In her own mind she was a complete failure: as a nun, as an academic, and as a normal woman capable of intimacy. Her future seemed very much in question until she stumbled into comparative theology. What she found, in learning, thinking, and writing about other religions, was the ecstasy and transcendence she had never felt as a nun.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKAREN ARMSTRONG is the author of numerous other books on religious affairs--including \u003ci\u003eA History of God, The Battle for God, Holy War, The Case for God, Islam, Buddha, \u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Great Transformation--\u003c\/i\u003eand two memoirs, \u003ci\u003eThrough the Narrow Gate\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Spiral Staircase\u003c\/i\u003e. Her work has been translated into forty-five languages. She has addressed members of the U.S. Congress on three occasions; lectured to policy makers at the U.S. State Department; participated in the World Economic Forum in New York, Jordan, and Davos; addressed the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington and New York; is increasingly invited to speak in Muslim countries; and is now an ambassador for the UN Alliance of Civilizations. In February 2008 she was awarded the TED Prize and recently launched with TED a Charter for Compassion, created online by the general public and crafted by leading thinkers in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion. She lives in London.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51690511958290,"sku":"9780385721271","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_b2beace8-8b27-4702-b151-13a97883df0f.jpg?v=1761737523","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-spiral-staircase-my-climb-out-of-darkness-9780385721271","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}