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I'd like to nominate The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
From Goodreads:
In 1941, a brilliant, good-looking young man decided to give up a promising literary career in New York to enter a monastery in Kentucky, from where he proceeded to become one of the most influential writers of this century. Talk about losing your life in order to find it. Thomas Merton's 1st book, The Seven Storey Mountain, describes his early doubts, his conversion to a Catholic faith of extreme certainty, & his decision to take life vows as a Trappist. Altho his conversionary piety sometimes falls into sticky-sweet abstractions, Merton's autobiographical reflections are mostly wise, humble & concrete. The best reason to read The Seven Storey Mountain, however, may be the one Merton provided in his introduction to its Japanese translation: "I seek to speak to you, in some way, as your own self. Who can tell what this may mean? I myself do not know, but if you listen, things will be said that are perhaps not written in this book. And this will be due not to me but to the One who lives & speaks in both."--Michael Joseph Gross
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