From the Heart

From the Heart weaves together a personal narrative of a life-threatening ailment with considerations of philosophy, art, and science to contemplate ultimate questions: matters of life and death.

Jeffrey L. Kosky is professor of religion at Washington & Lee University. His books include Arts of Wonder: Enchanting Secularity (2013).

Lars Svendsen, author of A Philosophy of Hope:
Kosky has written a book unlike any other I know. In this meditation on having, losing, and regaining his heart, he sometimes wears his heart on his sleeve, sometimes scrutinizes it from a distance. He tells a philosophical story that creates a space in which you, too, can meditate on what happens to your heart for as long as it beats, until it stops.

Raymond Barfield, MD, PhD, author of Wager: Beauty, Suffering, and Being in the World:
In From the Heart, Kosky uses his own experience with aortic valve replacement to connect the strange and instrumental world of medicine with the variety of ways the metaphorical heart has shown up in our attempts to explore the mystery and meaning of life. From the Heart will resonate with people who have gone through life-threatening injuries and illnesses, but I also hope that medical providers will read this book to better understand their patients' experiences.

Costica Bradatan, author of In Praise of Failure: Four Lessons in Humility:
With a seasoned humanist’s eye, and with a serious cardiac condition of his own, Kosky looks at the heart’s intimate mechanics and morphology, as well as its symbolism in religion, literature, philosophy, and the arts. The result is an exquisite, unique, haunting book. Humanistic scholarship at its best—and most heartbreakingly personal.

Jack Miles, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of God: A Biography:
Jeffrey L. Kosky has a congenitally hurt heart. When that hurt became acute, surgery saved him—but for how long, and to what end? He engages those questions with a blend of intimacy and unsparing introspection that recalls Augustine’s Confessions. Have you, like me, survived heart surgery? This is a book for us. And even if you haven’t, it will do your heart a world of good.