confessions · augustine

Augustine's Confessions, written around 397, is the first spiritual autobiography: a prayer addressed to God recounting his childhood, his ambitions and loves, his years as a Manichee and his conversion in a Milan garden. The final books turn from memory to time, creation and the reading of Genesis, and the whole is held together by the restless heart that finds rest only in God.

Augustine, Confessions, translated by Henry Chadwick (Oxford University Press, 2008). Read in full over three sessions, Sophomore Fall at Torrey Honors: Books 1 to 9, then Books 10 to 13.