New book details incredible conversions of figures throughout history

NEWS PROVIDED BY
Carmel Communications
Aug. 16, 2022

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 16, 2022 /Christian Newswire/ -- "What is truth?" asked Pontius Pilate to Jesus on the day of his crucifixion more than 2,000 years ago. The question is still being asked today, and really has never stopped being asked since Jesus' time. The journeys to that answer are almost always fraught with peril, frustrations, anxiety and challenges, as Tom Hiney brings to life in his new book, THE SONG OF ASCENTS: LIVES OF RAGE AND STILLNESS (Ignatius Press).

Hiney converted to Catholicism in 2020, and is preparing for ordination to the priesthood. He is a native of England and a journalist who has written for the Spectator and the London Observer. He is the acclaimed author of On the Missionary Trail and of Raymond Chandler: A Biography, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

THE SONG OF ASCENTS brings readers on journeys of people who overcame extraordinary obstacles and challenges in their lives with the sole goal of finding the truth and eventually leading to Christ — stories of a composer in Communist Poland (Henryk Górecki), a trapped Arctic whaling vessel (the Diana), a lost explorer (David Livingstone), and a disobedient general (Charles Gordon). The Truth is bigger than we are, and "it falls from heaven," writes Hiney. "It can fall at four in the morning when you are cold with insomnia, and it can refuse to fall when advertised. It has a life of its own."

THE SONG OF ASCENTS tells the stories of lives laid bare by love, stories that, over the years, gradually spurred the acclaimed author himself up the ragged mountain of his own conversion from atheism to Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism. "These stories," he says, "are about people turning to God in horrible moments, with faltering human hearts like mine, and finding Him to be faithful."

"The Song of Ascents is one of those deeply satisfying books that looks at different people in various times and places, and sees, within seemingly disparate narratives, the hand of God," said Sally Read, poet and author of Night's Bright Darkness: A Modern Conversion Story. "Tom Hiney is an absorbing and engaging writer, and by the end of the book the reader feels not only the frisson of coming closer to the divine, but also the sense of having made a new friend."

For more information, to request a media review copy, or to schedule an interview with Tom Hiney, please contact Kevin Wandra (404-788-1276 or [email protected]) of Carmel Communications.

SOURCE Carmel Communications

CONTACT: Kevin Wandra, 404-788-1276, [email protected]