Mark C. Taylor’s recent New York Times Op-ed, End the University as We Know It continues to be one of the most popular stories on the NYT Web site and has been widely discussed on the Internet. (The University of Chicago Press blog has a good summary of some of the reactions to the piece.)

We are pleased and fortunate to be publishing Mark Taylor’s forthcoming book Field Notes from Elsewhere: Reflections on Living and Dying (due in October). Well-known for his works of philosophy and religion, Field Notes from Elsewhere is a more personal work borne out of his near-death experience with cancer. The book combines philosophical and theological reflection with photographs and personal narrative to examine mortality, human frailty, and the ways in which we confront death.

In reviewing the book, Paul Auster writes:

“Mark C. Taylor’s Field Notes from Elsewhere is an intoxicating whirl of a book, an engine of thought and feeling that touches on everything that counts most to us: living and dying, families, faith, friendship, and the quest to ground oneself in the real. To the best of my knowledge, it is a work without precedent.”