New translation of Divine Milieu by Sion Cowell

I love books as objects -- I do, I do, I do! And I much prefer hardcovers to paperbacks. I'm in my 30s, and I've seen beloved paperbacks lose their structural integrity over the years and literally fall apart before my eyes. Not so with hardbacks. They are sturdy things, built to last.
So I've been looking for a hardcover copy of The Divine Milieu by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. This book is hard to explain; it's very different from most other books. It was written by a paleontologist Jesuit priest in the 1920s as a way of reconciling Christianity and evolution, but it's also something of a spiritual self-help book, too, if I can say that without diminishing its theological complexity.
The latest copy of the book describes itself this way:

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's spiritual masterpiece, The Divine Milieu, in a newly revised translation by Sion Cowell, is addressed to those who have lost faith in conventional religion but who still have a sense of the divine at the heart of the cosmos. "The heavens declare the glory of God," sings the Psalmist. Teilhard would agree. "We are surrounded," he says, "by a certain sort of pessimist who tells us continually that our world is foundering in atheism. But should we not say rather that what it is suffering from is unsatisfied theism?" He sees a universe in movement where progress is the spiritualisation of matter and its opposite is the materialisation of spirit. Teilhard opts for progress. The Divine Milieu is the divine centre and the divine circle, the divine heart and the divine sphere. The Divine Milieu is written for those who listen primarily to the voices of the Earth: its purpose is to provide a link to traditional Christianity (as expressed in Baptism, Cross and Eucharist) in order to demonstrate that the fears prevalent in contemporary world society as it abuses its very foundation - Mother Earth - may be better understood by the Gospel path. Teilhard's primary purpose is to show a way forward, which he sees as the "Christian religious ideal".

Clearly, this is not a book for everyone, but it really rings bells for me as I have long seen science and religion as mutually reinforcing, not opposites. This is what happens to a person when her early education is overseen by the sisters of the Sacred Heart.
So my wonderful new translation in HARDCOVER arrived yesterday. I had to pay $36 (!) for it in these difficult economic times, but I did anyway, and that was Amazon's deep discount from the $50 list price. It is a lovely slim volume with a groovy cover design that implies cutting-edge sophistication. Interestingly, the cover resonates with some recent popular science writing.
Compare the cover of the new Divine Milieu ... :


... with the cover of a recent(ish) book, completely scientific on string theory by scientist Brian Greene called The Fabric of the Cosmos:


Kinda looks the same, doesn't it? Speaking of Greene, wouldn't that would be a dream dinner party: Teilhard de Chardin and Brian Greene. Throw in Pema Chodron and Jonathan Safran Foer for an ecumenical foursome. I'd cook a delicious feast and we'd talk late into the night ...