Acts of Faith: Practices for the Spirit

A QUARTERLY RESOURCE MAY 2013 VOL.58

Features ● Profiles ● Reviews

America the Beautifulby Ben Carson, M.D. with Candy CarsonWritten by well-known doctor and author Ben Carson,America the Beautiful tackles issues that are at theforefront of the Amercan mind. Unabridged

Performed by Dion Graham

Ungluedby Lysa TerKeurstUnglued offers words of hope and healing forwomen struggling to make wise choices in themidst of their raw emotions. TerKeurst shows howto positively process reactive emotions that comefrom situations all women face daily. UnabridgedPerformed by the Author

Francisby Mario EscobarFirst Jesuit. First Latin American. And a new pope who chose ashis first act a simple request: please pray for me. Unabridged

Now Distributing AudiobookBestsellers for...

BrillianceAudio

Audiobooks on Compact Disc & MP3-CD

How To Influence People by John C. Maxwell and Jim DornanYou can make a difference! How to InfluencePeople will empower you to become a potent andpositive influence in the lives of those around youwithout using a position or title. UnabridgedPerformed by Van Tracy

PW May6 2013_Layout 1 4/30/13 6:06 PM Page 1

Advertisement

The Language of Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson EggerichsA revolutionary solution to the #1 marriage problemUnabridged

A Walk Through the Dark by Eva L. Piper with Cecil MurpheyBestselling author Don Piper’s story, recounted in theNew York Times bestseller, 90 Minutes in Heaven—Now told from the view of his wife, Eva Piper, aspeaker and author with a unique insight. UnabridgedPerformed by the Author

Beyond Boundaries by Dr. John TownsendThe coauthor of the bestselling Boundaries helps listenersbreak through the pain of difficult relationships to trustand nurture genuine love relationships. UnabridgedPerformed by the Author

Take the Risk by Ben Carson, M.D., with Gregg LewisDr. Ben Carson explores the relationship between risk andfaith, offering insights from his own life as a world-renowned nuerosurgeon. Unabridged

Memory's Door by James L. RubartA WELL SPRING NOVEL: BOOK 2—With a vic-tory against the Evil One under their belts, the fourof the Prophecy have managed to bring even greateradversity their way. Unabridged

Rosemary’s Cottage by Colleen CobleTHE HOPE BEACH SERIES: BOOK 2—Amycame to Rosemary Cottage to grieve, to heal,maybe even find love. But there’s a deadly under-tow of secrets around Hope Island…. Unabridged

The Circle Maker by Mark BattersonOver 150,000 copies sold of The Circle Maker!Mark Batterson will help you uncover your heart'sdeepest desires and God-given dreams and un-leash them through the kind of audacious prayerthat God delights to answer. UnabridgedPerformed by the Author

Draw the Circleby Mark BattersonDrawing from forty days of true stories, MarkBatterson applies the principles of his New YorkTimes bestselling book The Circle Maker to teachus a new way to pray. UnabridgedPerformed by the Author

The Purpose Driven Life by Rick WarrenRick Warren's expanded 10th anniversary edition ofhis #1 international bestseller, The Purpose DrivenLife, with over 32 million copies in printUnabridgedPerformed by the Author

Find ALL These Audiobooks and More Online: www.brillianceaudio.com

AvailableAugust 2013

PW May6 2013_Layout 1 4/30/13 6:03 PM Page 2

P r a c t i c e s f o r t h e S p i r i t R e l i g i o n U p d a t e

W W W . P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY. C O M 1

Books on prayer, devotions are ever-greens for publishers

How to Talk to GodBy Kimberly Winston

So it should come as no surprise that b o o k s a b o u t prayer and other spiritual prac-tices, as well as

devotionals—books of regular, usually daily, prayers and/or inspira-tional readings—are as strong as ever and show no sign of decline. And unlike some categories that are driven by social trends and current events, this category remains largely immune to outside influence, though do expect to see a sprinkling of new titles of this kind from Catholic publishers tied to the election of Pope Francis I.

As in the past, most of these books are written by women, since they remain the primary readers of such books. Many of these authors build up a following, and some rise to superstar status. That, too, is unlikely to change as new and estab-lished authors increasingly maintain contact with readers through social media; their short formats are well suited to sharing brief prayers and meditations (Christian meditation is a form of prayer-ful contemplation, while Buddhist med-

associate publisher and director of sales and marketing at InterVarsity Press. “And books on prayer, meditation, and spiritual practices are giving them a por-tal to experience God in deeper, fresh, meaningful ways.”

FINDING PARTNERSCrosby says InterVarsity Press has seen a significant increase in its output of spir-itual formation books, which include devotionals and spiritual practice titles, since the 2005 founding of its dedicated Formatio line. Critical to sales has been Formatio’s partnering with leaders of spiritual centers and ministries to both write and promote its titles. “The orga-nizational partnerships are often the key,” Crosby says. “Our work with the Transforming Center, Renovaré, and Aprentis has elevated the stature of our Formatio books and given us entrée to key leaders in this area. That, layered on

top of traditional venues such as the Religious Booksell-ers Trade Exhibit, has helped us gain visibility in what can be a crowded land-scape.” IVP has also begun co-sponsoring spiritual formation

events with some of the centers, another way of getting its titles to stand out, such as An Unhurried Life: Following Jesus’ Rhythms of Work and Rest by Alan Fadling (June), executive director of the Journey, a Christian leadership ministry; Hidden in Christ: Living as God’s Beloved by James Bryan Smith (July), director of the Apre-ntis Institute on Christian Formation at Friends University; and A Guide to the Blessing Life by Gerrit Dawson (Sept.), pastor of a Louisiana megachurch.

Other publishers swear by the partner-ships they form with brand-name authors who take readers through the steps of daily prayer, meditation, or spiritual growth. Just as consumers put their trust in a certain ketchup, soft drink, or auto-mobile, so do they trust certain authors. But Tracy Danz, Zondervan’s v-p and

itation is a practice of mindfulness, con-centration, and stillness).

Still, change may be afoot. As older Americans give way to younger genera-tions, books about prayer, meditation, devotions, and other forms of spiritual practice may have to change to survive— young people report much lower levels of daily spiritual practice than their elders, only 48%, according to a 2012 Pew Forum report on millennials, compared to 58% among older Americans. But across the board, publishers remain enthusiastic about the category’s staying power. “Increasingly, we believe people both inside the church and those people of Christian faith who may not regularly attend religious services are desiring a deeper connection with the God they claim to believe exists,” says Jeff Crosby,

Praying—speaking to God in formal or informal ways—is a universal form of human communication. Members of every world religion, from Anabaptists to Zoroastrians, practice some form of prayer. And prayer is popular; a 2007 Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life poll showed that more than half of Americans say they pray on a daily basis, even those who are religiously unaffiliated.

R e l i g i o n U p d a t e | P r a c t i c e s f o r t h e S p i r i t

P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY ■ M A Y 6 , 2 0 1 32

(June), and New Every Morning: A Cele-bration of God’s Faithfulness for Women by Leah Slawson (Aug.).

Dan Balow, until last week Barbour’s v-p of business development, likens devotionals to Bibles, in that the packag-ing possibilities are endless, providing publishers with opportunities to reach newer and smaller niche markets. “[They are] something the market never seems to tire of,” he says. But that doesn’t mean publishers can relax when it comes to marketing—with so many devotionals, the books have to stand out. At Barbour, this means promoting them as friendly, easy, and welcoming, not “work,” he says. “I recall a friend of mine in the industry joking that some Christian books seem to be ‘Castor Oil for the Christian Soul,’ ” he says, riffing off Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul, a 1997 runaway bestselling devotional for HCI. “Consumers need to be convinced this is something they want to spend a month or two or 12 reading.”

Harvest House is strong in women’s devotionals and has What Happens When Women Say Yes to God by Lysa TerKeurst (Aug.) and A Book of Prayers for Young Women by Stormie Omartian and her daughter Paige Omartian (Apr.). Other niche devotionals include Prayers and Promises for Worried Parents by Robert Morgan (Howard Books, Sept.), as well

Angelo D. Scolozzi (Servant Books, July); Billy Graham: A Leg-acy of Faith and Coach John Wooden: Winning with Principle, both from B&H Publishing in September as part of its Life Wisdom series; and God Will

Carry You Through by Max Lucado (Thomas Nelson, Sept.).

WaterBrook Multnomah has grown its output in the devotional/spiritual prac-tices category by a few titles a year, yet Ken Petersen, v-p and editor-in-chief, is cautious in his approach. “In the Chris-tian market daily devotional practice is considered an essential part of a person’s relationship to God, so devotionals play an important role,” he says. “Yet it’s a crowded category, lots of competition, so we need to be cautious in what we pub-lish, making sure that the devotionals we do have a strong concept and rich con-tent.” WaterBrook Multnomah looks among its bestselling authors in other categories to develop related devotionals. Upcoming is Sun Stand Still (Nov.) based on megachurch pastor Steven Furtick’s 2010 book of the same title, and Limit-less: Devotions for a Ridiculously Good Life (Apr.) by Nick Vujicic, whose inspira-tional memoir, Life Without Limits: Inspi-ration for a Ridiculously Good Life (2010), was a strong seller. “The success of a devotional in the reader’s hands each day rests in the thoughtfulness, insight, and voice of the content, in how it speaks to the reader in a quiet moment,” Petersen says. “That takes time to write well.”

CHICKS RULEDevotionals are Barbour Publishing’s foundation—its first title was a 1998 reprint of Oswald Chambers’s 1924 clas-sic, My Utmost for His Highest, still a strong backlist seller. Today’s new titles largely target women, with His Praise Is on My Lips: A Celebration of Worship for Women by Valorie Quesenberry (Apr.), Lord, You Have My Heart: Devotional Prayers for Women by Linda Holloway

publisher, says even the best brand name must be combined with an undiluted, timely message. “When you have a solid message, no matter how many other books are published, the book will find a home in the hearts of readers,” he says. Engaging celebrity authors allows Zondervan greater marketing possibili-ties, like tapping into the author’s Web site, social media feeds, and special events.

Nowhere is this more evident than with Encouragement for Today: Devotions for Everyday Living by Lysa TerKeurst (with coauthors Renee Swope and Samantha Evilsizer; Sept.), a bestselling author (Made to Crave) and leader of Proverbs 31, a women’s ministry. Zondervan is team-ing with Proverbs 31 to create a national advertising campaign that includes a social media contest, a street team, blog-ger outreach, and a week’s worth of free devotions. “We will be equipping these women to share with all their friends,” says Alicia Mey, Zondervan’s senior mar-keting director.

For All In: You Are One Decision Away from a Totally Different Life by Mark Bat-terson (Sept.), Zondervan will focus heavily on online promotions, key to reaching the young, city-dwelling Chris-tians who form the core of Batterson’s audience as he is the pastor of a large urban congregation. Also new from Zondervan are Wounded by God’s People: Discovering How God’s Love Heals Our Hearts by Anne Graham Lotz (Sept.) and Couples of the Bible: A One-Year Devotional Study to Draw You Closer to God and Each Other by Robert and Bobbie Wolgemuth (Apr.). Other new titles by celebrity authors include The Gift of Joy: Daily Meditations by Mother Teresa, edited by

SPIRITUAL LIVING AND LOVING

www.questbooks.net To order call PGW 800–788–3123

Cultivate an open mind

Dancing with Fire: A Mindful Way to Loving RelationshipsJOHN AMODEO, Ph.D.978-0-8356-0914-2 • $16.95 pbk • 288 pp

A guide to strengthening relationships of all kinds.

“ A must-read for every intelligent person who aspires to live as an awake and vibrant human being.”

—SUSAN M. JOHNSON, Ed.D., author, Hold Me Tight

Finding the On-Ramp to Your Spiritual Path: A Road Map to Joy and RejuvenationJAN PHILLIPS978-0-8356-0917-3 • $14.95 pob • 176 pp

Directs beginners on a spiritual journey for lasting peace.

“Inspires any seeker to walk in the freedom of love.” — BARBARA MARX HUBBARD, author & public speaker

P r a c t i c e s f o r t h e S p i r i t | R e l i g i o n U p d a t e

Bite-Sized Insights by Phil Moore, and Straight to the Heart of Solomon: 60 Bite-Sized Insights by Phil Moore (all July). From B&H comes The Love Dare Day by Day by Stephen and Alex Kendrick (Sept.); Image, the Random House Cath-olic imprint, has 99 Blessings: An Invita-tion to Life by Br. David Steindl-Rast (Feb.)—two more examples of develop-ing devotionals around well-known authors and books.

Across the board, publishers report that devotionals tied to a season or to the liturgical calendar are among their best-

not ,” Moore says . “How will the reader’s experience be differ-ent and better with y o u r b o o k ? ” To a c c o m p l i s h t h a t , Chalice is creating hybrid devotionals, titles that mix devo-tionals and spiritual practice with memoir and self-help. Among such books are Who’s Got Time? Spirituality for a Busy Generation by Teri Peterson and Amy Fetterman, Ten-Min-ute Transformation: Small Spiritual Steps to Revolutionize Your Life by Chris Altrock, and Wilderness Blessings: How Down Syn-drome Reconstructed Our Life and Faith by Jeffery M. Gallagher (all Sept.). In the same vein, Thomas Nelson has 31 Days to Happiness by David Jeremiah (Sept.); Kregel Publications offers God Is for Us: 52 Readings from Romans by Simon Pon-sonby, Straight to the Heart of Psalms: 60

as Bible Promises for Dad by Mary Grace Birkhead and Bible Promises for Teachers by Karen Moore (both B&H, May). Harvest House even has one for hunters, with a new, updated version of Steve Chapman’s A Look at Life from a Deer Stand: Hunting for the Meaning of Life (April).

REACHING THE TIME-STARVEDIn some devotionals and spiritual prac-tice titles, “condensed and quick” seems to be the goal, with many authors prom-ising greater spiritual depth or awareness in a matter of minutes, days, or weeks. Time-driven titles are a staple for all publishers of devotionals, from the Cath-olic and evangelical houses to the nonde-nominational and general spirituality ones. That can make it hard for these titles to stand out, says Amber Moore, Chalice Press’s marketing and client ser-vices manager. “You have to show how your book has a benefit the others do

SPIRITUAL LIVING AND LOVING

www.questbooks.net To order call PGW 800–788–3123

Cultivate an open mind

Dancing with Fire: A Mindful Way to Loving RelationshipsJOHN AMODEO, Ph.D.978-0-8356-0914-2 • $16.95 pbk • 288 pp

A guide to strengthening relationships of all kinds.

“ A must-read for every intelligent person who aspires to live as an awake and vibrant human being.”

—SUSAN M. JOHNSON, Ed.D., author, Hold Me Tight

Finding the On-Ramp to Your Spiritual Path: A Road Map to Joy and RejuvenationJAN PHILLIPS978-0-8356-0917-3 • $14.95 pob • 176 pp

Directs beginners on a spiritual journey for lasting peace.

“Inspires any seeker to walk in the freedom of love.” — BARBARA MARX HUBBARD, author & public speaker

R e l i g i o n U p d a t e | P r a c t i c e s f o r t h e S p i r i t

P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY ■ M A Y 6 , 2 0 1 34

Journey to the Center of the Heart by Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook (June). Servant Books offers The Holy Land: An Armchair Pilgrimage by Fr. Mitch Pacwa (Sept.). Eerdmans takes a look at a series of Zen drawings and poems as a Christian spiri-tual practice in The Ox-Herder and the Good Shepherd: Finding Christ on the Buddha’s Path by Addison Hodges Hart (Aug.).

As innovative as some of these titles are, there is surely more change to come as people under 30, who polls show are less likely to be involved with organized reli-gion than their elder counterparts, look for spiritual materials. Balow says Bar-bour is already paying attention to such polls, reaching out to authors grappling with the challenge of how to practice faith outside of church walls. Still, he thinks spiritual practice titles have a future with those readers, and that one coming trend may be a blend of contem-plation and activism. As for devotionals, he is less sure. “Daily devotional books as we have known them may well not be as much a part of the publishing future as people look for more substance, more honest wrestling with issues and uncer-tainties related to faith and more narra-tive elements within the resources they read.”

Jewish Lights/SkyLight Paths’s Mat-lins also thinks younger, unaffiliated people will shape the future of the cate-gory. “There is going to be a sharp divide between books that are denominationally driven and only contain inspiration and wisdom from a particular perspective, and books that are more broadly driven across all the world’s wisdom traditions,” he says. “I think the latter category is going to be what appeals to this growing group” of the religiously unaffiliated. ■

category is a yearning among readers for a do-it-yourself spirituality. “We find strong response in our readership to our approach to these subjects—practical, relevant to daily life, yet dealing with the mystery of our lives and our relationship with the Divine,” Matlins says. An example from Jewish Lights is Jewish Men Pray: Words of Yearning, Praise, Peti-tion, Gratitude and Wonder from Tradi-tional and Contemporary Sources, edited by Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzky and Stuart M. Matlins (May); from SkyLight Paths comes Men Pray: Voices of Strength, Faith, Healing, Hope and Courage by the editors of SkyLight Paths Publishing with intro-ductions for each type of prayer by Brian D. McLaren (Apr.).

Other guides include Prayer: Our Deep-est Longing by Ronald Rolheiser (Francis-can Media, Aug.), 10 Prayers You Can’t Live Without: How to Talk to God About Anything by Rick Hamlin (Guideposts, Apr.; profiled in this issue), Connecting with God: Prayers for Those Who Have Yet to Find the Words by William J. O’Malley (Orbis, Feb.), and The Mercy Prayer: The One Prayer Jesus Always Answers by Rob-ert Gelinas (Thomas Nelson, July). Tarcher has Heaven on Earth: Timeless Prayers of Wisdom and Love by Stephanie Dowrick and The Power of Meditation by Edward Viljoen (Sept.); from Moody Press comes It Happens After Prayer: Bibli-cal Motivation for Believing Prayer by H.B. Charles Jr. (May).

That desire for a practical spirituality is also evident in new titles about employing painting, writing, and travel-ing as spiritual practices. Paraclete has Color: Drawing a New Path to God by Sybil MacBeth (Apr.); from Jewish Lights is Pilgrimage—The Sacred Art:

sellers. Moore says Chalice’s Advent and Lenten devotional titles sometimes sell out. While these books are hard to pro-mote because they come from many pub-lishers and have a short shelf life, they can be bread and butter for many publishers in the category (see “Publishing for Hol-idays a Business Challenge, p. 10).

This is especially true in the Catholic market. Franciscan Media has a long list of such devotionals, including Let Us Adore Him: Daily Meditations for Advent and Christmas by Richard Fragomeni (July), Yes/And... Daily Meditations by Richard Rohr (July), and The Advent of Christ: Scripture Reflections to Prepare for Christmas by Edward Sri (July). Pauline Books and Media, a Catholic publisher, expects the election of Pope Francis I will lead to new titles in multiple categories about his namesake, Saint Francis of Assisi, including devotional and spiri-tual practice titles. Brittany Schlorff, editorial assistant to acquisitions at Pau-line, says that’s just fine with the Catho-lic publishing house, where devotionals and spiritual practice books are consid-ered growing categories. “There’s a renewal of interest in classical spiritual-ity, even among young people,” Schlorff says. “These books are timeless.” To reach the young—and anyone else with a smartphone—Pauline has developed book-based apps, including some on prayer and spiritual practice. New apps include Beginning Contemplative Prayer, based on the 2009 book of the same title by Kathryn J. Hermes, and the 2012 Walk with Me the Way of the Cross by J. Francis Sofie Jr. (see “Category Apps Expand Audiences for Religion Books,” p. 12)

PRAYER 101Also continuing strong in this category across the faith spectrum—Christian, Catholic, Jewish, and general spiritual-ity—are books that promise to teach the reader the basics of prayer or another spiritual practice like meditation. Stuart Matlins, publisher of both Jewish Lights and the more general spirituality-ori-ented SkyLight Paths, says driving this

Award-winning author Dee Henderson is back and better than ever! Henderson’s recent novel, Full Disclosure, hit both the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists, securing her hold on the top spot in inspirational romantic suspense.

Unspoken by Dee HendersonTrade Paper; $15.99; 978-0-7642-1171-3Hardcover; $22.99; 978-0-7642-1184-3Ebook; $15.99; 978-1-4412-6340-7

ON SALE OCTOBER 1, 2013

Acclaimed by the likes of Newsweek, TIME, and the Wall Street Journal, Beverly Lewis is the top name in Amish fi ction. Don’t miss the latest in the New York Times bestselling Home to Hickory Hollow series.

The Secret Keeper by Beverly LewisHome to Hickory HollowTrade Paper; $15.99; 978-0-7642-0980-2 Hardcover; $19.99; 978-0-7642-1148-5Large Print: $17.99; 978-0-7642-1149-2Ebook; $15.99; 978-1-4412-6272-1

ON SALE SEPTEMBER 3, 2013

Award-winning author Dee Henderson is back Acclaimed by the likes of Newsweek TIME, and , and TIME, and TIME

Stock Up on Blockbuster Stock Up on Blockbuster Fiction This Fall

From New York Times Bestselling AuthorsNew York Times Bestselling AuthorsNew York Times

Trade Paper; $15.99; 978-0-7642-1171-3Hardcover; $22.99; 978-0-7642-1184-3Ebook; $15.99; 978-1-4412-6340-7

ON SALE OCTOBER 1, 2013

A Division of Baker Publishing Group • bethanyhouse.comAvailable from your sales rep or call Bethany House at (800) 877-2665

In Canada, contact David C. Cook Distribution at (800) 263-2664For available rights information, please contact Marilyn Gordon at mgordon@bakerbooks.com

P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY ■ M A Y 6 , 2 0 1 36

While both Bud-dhist and MBS classics continue to sell strongly, an exploding popula-tion of those who

identify as spiritual but not religious has also pushed the markets for these books in new directions. A recent Pew study showed that the population of those who are unaffiliated with any religion has dou-bled in the past two decades, and many of them turn to books for guidance and inspiration in place of religious congre-gations or ministers.

Wisdom Publications’ core audience is Buddhists, but “if I only depended on hardcore Buddhists it would be hard to survive,” says Tim McNeill, Wisdom’s CEO. Many titles have a broad appeal because Wisdom understands Buddhism primarily as a human resource and a phi-losophy rather than a religion, McNeill says. Practical books like Mindful Teach-ing and Teaching Mindfulness (2009) are “Buddhist in spirit,” but “there’s no idea that people are going to make a prostra-tion in front of a statue,” McNeill says, when they are finished reading them.

Buddhist meditation and mindfulness continue to sell very well,” but notes that it’s particular authors that draw readers with new books as well. “There always seems to be a thirst for Pema Chödrön’s new teaching—she’s a major backlist seller for us—but her new book, Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change(Oct., 2012), has started out very strong.” Other popular authors include Chogyam Trungpa, the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Jack Kornfield. Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind has sold strongly for more than 40 years. O’Neal attributes the continuing popularity of these books to the high quality of their writing as well as to their content.

PROLIFERATING NICHESAs spirituality morphs into secular appli-cations, both Buddhist and MBS pub-lishers have moved into titles that appeal

to the nonreligious through spe-cialized applications for mindful-ness practice. These include educa-tion, sports, food, medicine, psy-choanalytic therapy, and healing environments, even the military and business, says McNeill. Wis-dom titles in “applied Buddhism” include The Mindful Writer by Dinty W. Moore (2012); How to Be

Sick by Toni Bernhard (2010), a book both for caretakers and those with chronic illnesses; and Arts of Contempla-tive Care: Pioneering Voices in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Pastoral Work (2012), which McNeill describes as a “volume that brings together the voices of pio-neers in the field of contemplative care, from hospice and hospitals to colleges, prisons, and the military.”

Sara Carder, executive editor at Pen-guin’s MBS imprint, Tarcher, says, “Lately, we’ve been looking for fresh new niches within the category to focus on, [with titles] such as Buddha’s Book of Sleepby Joseph Emet [Jan.], which includes seven exercises to combat sleep prob-lems.” Even a book in the death and dying category, such as Barry Eaton’s upcoming Afterlife (Sept.), offers a practi-cal, step-by-step guide to life after death,

Buddhist and mind-body-spirit books attract many do-it-yourself spiritualseekers

Mindfulness for All By Diane Reynolds

CLASSICS RETAIN THEIR HOLD Emily Han, acquisitions editor at Beyond Words, which publishes both Buddhist and MBS titles, finds older staples have a continuing appeal. Thich Nhat Hanh’s 1991 Peace Is Every Step is “just as fresh, profound, and relevant [to readers] over 20 years later.” People have the same need for finding peace and wellbeing amid the stresses of modern life as they did decades ago, she thinks. McNeill points to Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhunte Gunaratana, which came out in a 20th anniversary edition in 2011, as a perennially strong-selling introduction to mindfulness practice.

Dave O’Neal, senior editor at Shamb-hala Publications, which also publishes both Buddhist and MBS books, agrees that “tried-and-true titles in the realm of

R e l i g i o n U p d a t e P r a c t i c e s f o r t h e S p i r i t

Classic how-to books on meditation—practices that still the mind and bring insight and tranquility—have long been main-stays of Buddhist and mind-body-spirit (MBS) publishing. Today it’s books on mindfulness—a practice that brings the insights and attentiveness of meditation into everyday life—that are proliferating: if you are a teacher, writer, parent, or in the military, there’s a mindfulness book for you.

A Division of Baker Publishing Group • bethanyhouse.com

Available from your sales rep or call Bethany House at (800) 877-2665 • In Canada, contact David C. Cook Distribution at (800) 263-2664

For available rights information, please contact Marilyn Gordon at mgordon@bakerbooks.com

The Top Namein Inspirational Historical Fiction

Award-winning, bestselling author

Lynn Austin makes a much-

anticipated return to biblical fi ction.

Her fi rst biblical series, CHRONICLES

OF THE KINGS, has sold more than

300,000 copies.

Return to Me by Lynn AustinTHE RESTORATION CHRONICLES #1

Trade Paper; $14.99; 978-0-7642-0898-0Hardcover; $19.99; 978-0-7642-1150-8

Ebook; $14.99; 978-1-4412-6270-7AVAILABLE OCTOBER 2013

Bestselling author Tracie Peterson

continues her latest historical series,

featuring a fresh Minnesota setting

and the adventure and romance her

fans have come to love and expect.

The Miner’s Lady by Tracie PetersonLAND OF SHINING WATER

Trade Paper; $14.99; 978-0-7642-0621-4Hardcover; $19.99; 978-07642-1146-1

Large Print; $17.99; 978-0-7642-1147-8Ebook; $14.99; 978-1-4412-6269-1

AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2013

Bestselling author Lauraine Snelling

offers a prequel to her popular RED

RIVER VALLEY saga, which has sold

more than one million copies. This is

the untold story her fans have been

asking for: how beloved heroine

Ingeborg Strand came to emigrate

from Norway to America.

An Untamed Heart by Lauraine SnellingTrade Paper; $14.99; 978-0-7642-0203-2Hardcover; $19.99; 978-0-7642-1151-5

Ebook; $14.99; 978-1-4112-6281-3AVAILABLE OCTOBER 2013

HIGHLY-ANTICIPATED NOVELS FROM BESTSELLING AUTHORS

Coming This Fall From Bethany House

R e l i g i o n U p d a t e | F e a t u r e

P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY ■ M A Y 6 , 2 0 1 38

books to help push people into higher cognitive awareness. Leap of Perception by Penny Peirce from Beyond Words (May) is “a how-to book for the ‘attention skills’ that will become normal in the upcom-ing intuition age, such as undivided attention, unified field attention, and collective self attention. Readers will learn new human abilities such as telepa-thy and instant healing,” according to Beyond Words publicist Jessica Sturges. At Tarcher, “one recent trend we’ve seen in the MBS market is a fascination with how mindfulness practices can impact brain development,” says Carder, noting the upcoming, tentatively titled, Brain-storm by Daniel J. Siegel (fall, 2013), which approaches a specific topic—the adolescent brain—with mindfulness theory. For Beyond Words’ Han, “It’s been important for us to publish titles that open up the conversation—that extend and expand the dialogue—and be as inclusive as possible to a wide range of readers.” For Wisdom’s McNeill, the future looks bright: “I’m convinced there will be continuing efforts to apply these techniques in more and more environ-ments. In the West science tends to be the great arbiter of truth. As these research efforts validate the efficacy of meditation and mindfulness, it will only serve to stimulate reader interest.” ■

“white noise,” she says, and offer something fresh to the reader. She sees two major directions: books for the spiritual-but-not-religious, and “young emerg-ing voices that are sharing their own unique experiences and exploration of spirituality free from dogma and doctrine.”

Beyond Words is adding titles that offer a “new twist” to traditional subjects, such as the upcoming Buddha’s Wife by Janet Surrey and Stephen Berg-man (Sept. 2014). Aimed at women, the book will tell the story of Princess Yasodhara, locating Buddhist enlighten-ment in a practical environ-

ment of “family, relationships, and com-munity,” Han says.

Other titles, such as Lama Marut’s A Spiritual Renegade’s Guide to the Good Life (2012), seek to share “the wisdom of Buddhist teachings and practices for modern-day spiritual seekers or ‘rene-gades’ who are looking for [both] a grounded and slightly rebellious approach,” says Han. Marut’s second book, Be Nobody (June 2014), also aimed at the nonreligious, will continue the edgy dialogue with traditional Bud-dhism. The Internet has driven at least one acquisition: Beyond Words has signed the Indie Spiritualist Web site owner, Chris Grosso, whose book will combine teachings from Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity with the creative arts.

The titles say it all: Wisdom’s recent entries into an edgier market include the still popular Saltwater Buddha: A Surfer’s Quest to Find Zen on the Sea (2009), while Shambhala offers Lodro Rinzler’s The Buddha Walks into a Bar (2012) and his forthcoming Walk like a Buddha: Even if Your Boss Sucks, Your Ex Is Torturing You, and You’re Hung Over Again (fall, 2013). “He’s a young and hip Buddhist teacher who speaks to those among the ‘nones’ who might say ‘if I’m anything, I’m a Buddhist,’ ” says O’Neal.

MBS publishers are also releasing

including what activities and environments to expect in the afterlife.

Shambhala has also entered the field of applied mindful-ness. O’Neal mentions Jan Chozen Bays’s How to Train a Wild Elephant (2011), which includes mindfulness practices one can do even as a telephone is ringing, and lawyer Diane Musho Hamilton’s forthcom-ing Everything Is Workable (Nov.), which applies Zen med-itation practice to conflict reso-lution.

In 2011, Shambhala spun off Roost Books, founded by exec-utive v-p Sara Bercholz. Roost is another illustration of the evolution of MBS books into the practical direction of how-to books on cooking, crafts, and cre-ativity. Lifestyle books, Bercholz says, “were doing well for us and were particu-larly inspiring in the energy they were bringing to the company, so creating a brand around them felt like a natural progression.” To reach a broader audi-ence, “it also made sense from a branding perspective to create a unique identity apart from Shambhala, which is known for spiritual/psychological/philosophical titles,” Bercholz says.

One type of book is not currently appearing on Shambhala’s list: “We hope all of our books are those readers turn to regularly for inspiration and guidance, but in 2013 the ‘daily inspirational read-ing’ format isn’t appearing in our sea-sonal lists,” says Steve Pomije, Shamb-hala’s marketing communications man-ager. Wisdom, on the other hand, will release Daily Doses of Wisdom, a book of inspiration. “People like that,” says McNeill. “It’s a comforting thing.”

BEING HEARD ABOVE THE NOISEHan says Buddhism has flowed naturally into the broader MBS category, but she notes that both the MBS and Buddhist markets are saturated. Beyond Words is seeking books that can rise above the

F e a t u r e R e l i g i o n U p d a t e

W W W . P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY. C O M 9

Life’s Milestones

Aging, Caregiving, and GriefBy Juli Cragg Hilliard

Benedictine nun Joan Chittister writes an overarching book on life milestones with For Every-thing a Season (Mar.). Using timeless verses from Ecclesias-tes, Chittister writes that

meaning and fullness exist in all moments, according to publisher Rob-ert Ellsberg: “We tend to focus on the highlights of our life, whether the happy moments or the moments of joy, but those are inextricably intertwined with the dry moments of grief and sad-ness.”

While books on aging, caring for aging parents, death and dying, and grief have always found an audience, interest in life passage books has increased as boomers age and their parents are living longer, affirms Dawn Woods, publisher of Christian living and gift books at B&H Publishing. She cites National Alliance for Caregiving data that esti-mates 65 million people in the U.S. are unpaid family caregivers.

“As a Christian publisher, we’re look-ing for more ways to inspire and get [people] through,” Woods says, adding that highly personal books sell well. B&H’s titles on coping include Melissa (June) by Frank Page, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention (with Lawrence Kimbrough), about the suicide of Page’s adult daughter.

Says Tamara Crabtree, executive direc-

Group. In A Force of Will (Baker Books, Mar.), pastor Mike Stavlund explores his struggles after his four-month-old son’s sudden death. Stavlund hated what books on loss had to say. “He felt like nobody was being real with him,” says Lewis, describing Stavlund’s as “a very honest book.”

Taylor’s Gift (Revell, Apr.) by Todd and Tara Storch, with Jennifer Schuch-mann, tells of the death of the Storches’ 13-year-old daughter, Taylor, in a skiing accident and the donation of her organs to five people. The publisher sends out media kits with a bottle of nail polish in Taylor’s favorite shade of blue. “Because

of the organ donation, we’re getting quite a strong media backing on this book,” Lewis says.

New books from other publishers include Life After Death by Elizabeth Bookser Barkley (Franciscan Media, Apr.), on widowhood; North of Hope by Shannon Huffman Polson (Zondervan, Apr.), about the author’s travels to

the site in Alaska where a grizzly bear killed her parents; and Grieving the Loss of a Loved One by H. Norman Wright (Regal, June).

Joseph Durepos, executive editor for trade acquisitions at Catholic publisher Loyola Press, says, “What we’re seeing right now is a lot more interest in what we and others in the business call second-half-of-life spirituality.”

Loyola’s titles include Rock-Bottom Blessings by Karen Beattie (Feb.), Love and Salt by Amy Andrews and Jessica Mesman Griffith (Jan.), and A Season of Mystery by Paula Huston (2012). Long after Joseph Cardinal Bernardin’s death, the memoir of his final days, The Gift of Peace (1998), continues to sell.“One of the things about the second half of life is that everything that was black and white when you were younger becomes less so,” Durepos says, and life’s troubles teach many to “see the world with a little more mercy, a little more charity.” ■

tor of marketing for Abing-don Press, “The experiences of our authors are compelling them to write around these milestones in their lives.” Abingdon is publishing Moving Miss Peggy by Robert Benson (May), about his family coping with his mother’s dementia. This summer Thomas Nelson publishes Walk Through the Dark by Eva Piper with Cecil Murphey (July). The book tells Piper’s side of the story of her husband, Don, who was hospitalized, died, and returned, as told with Murphey in the megaselling 90 Minutes in Heaven (Revell, 1994).

In Love Growing Older, but I’ll Never Grow Old (Abingdon, Apr.), J. Ellsworth Kalas addresses learning to “make peace with where you are right now.” Donald Hilliard Jr., presiding bishop of Cove-nant Ecumenical Fellowship and Cathe-dral Assemblies Inc., writes with Rhoda McKinney-Jones about his journey past 40 in Midlife, Manhood, and Ministry (Judson Press, Apr).

REFLECTIONS ON BEREAVEMENTStories about great suffering attract read-ers by offering comfort and insight into how others survive terrible situations, notes Dave Lewis, executive v-p of sales and marketing for Baker Publishing

Some human experiences are inevitable, and they inevitably bring books. The focus might shift, but the topics of death, grief, and aging never go away. Today, as baby boomers age, these books are finding even more readers seeking comfort, guidance, and encouragement.

Seasonal products are “a multimillion-dollar market, a significant part of our business” for Abingdon Press, says Susan Salley, asso-

ciate publisher of Ministry Resources for the imprint’s par-ent, United Methodist Pub-lishing House. Tapping into church groups looking for devotional studies during Lent, for example, can significantly multiply sales—“in some seasons we resource 15,000 or more church communities, along with individual readers,” Salley says.

Time-sensitive titles are also “very important” to Kar-Ben, the leading Jewish children’s publisher, whose first quarter 2013 releases included It’s a Mitzvah, Gro-ver!, part of a series of Sesame Street–related holiday books. “The Jewish world very much operates around its holidays,” notes publisher Joni Sussman.

Readers and retailers are “not interested in Lent and Easter books until Christmas is over,” notes Salley. Lent began February 13 this year, “just six weeks into the new year. It’s not a big window to share your mes-sage,” she adds. However, the traffic increase at Christmas provides “a wonderful oppor-tunity” for sales, according to Todd Nie-meyer, v-p of sales for HarperCollins Chris-tian Publishing, where seasonal books are “always an important part of our publishing plan.”

Though holiday titles dominate the shelves for only a quarter, “it can be a glo-rious three months,” says Barbara Baker,

at Random House, which acquired best-seller Debbie Macomber’s general-market writing—including a popular annual Christmas story—last year. Macomber sells well in the Christian market, where she is published by Howard Books.

At Tyndale House, which takes a cau-tious approach to holiday titles, Karen Watson, associate publisher for fiction, observes there is a subtle risk with seasonal books that don’t take off: a poorly perform-ing holiday title can provide “an unfair comparison” to retailers basing orders of future titles on an author’s history.

SLOW TO GO DIGITALThough e-books have been making inroads into every category, holiday titles have been among the least affected for two rea-sons. They are often bought to be given to others, and those who purchase a title for themselves as a devotional or reflective exercise like to handle a physical copy as part of the experience.

Digital extras can help with the “peren-nial” push Franciscan Media’s Baker referred to. Abingdon Press attributed part of its ongoing success with Adam Hamil-ton’s 24 Hours That Changed the World, first released in 2010, with associated down-loadable church resources made available this year.

Though holiday e-book sales may be small, the same is not true for devotionals, which sell particularly well around holi-days like Easter, Christmas, and New Year’s. “This genre is experiencing solid digital growth,” says Laura Minchew, senior v-p and publisher for gifts, children, and new media at Thomas Nelson, “espe-cially with regard to apps.” She points to the app for Sarah Young’s bestselling Thomas Nelson devotional, Jesus Calling, which has “consistently ranked in the Top 10 book apps on iTunes.”

Another technological development, the rise of print on demand, has eased some of the pressure on holiday titles. No longer do publishers have to risk a big initial first-print run because a traditional reprint might not be completed in time. “Manag-ing inventory is easier,” says Abingdon’s Salley. ■

R e l i g i o n U p d a t e F e a t u r e

P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY ■ M A Y 6 , 2 0 1 310

Publishing for Holidays a Business ChallengeBy Andy Butcher

director of marketing, sales, and Internet for Franciscan Media. The Catholic publisher approaches holiday titles as perennials with repeat poten-tial, having stopped dating devotionals to a specific year in 2009. Baker cites Richard Rohr’s Wondrous Encounters: Scripture for Lent (2010) as “a wonderful perennial seller for us.”

First Communion season, the six to eight weeks after Easter, is “very impor-tant” for Catholic publishers, notes Don Cooper, executive director of the Word Among Us. “We are pretty careful in what we select [for holiday releases]; it’s a short window,” he says. “But if you hit it right, it can be well worth it.” The publisher scored a hit with its 2009 children’s title, Jesus Speaks to Me on My First Communion, which continues to sell well.

With short-season books, “marketing has to be coordinated well ahead of time,” says Jeff Crosby, associate publisher and director of sales and marketing for Inter-Varsity Press, which does only a few holi-day-focused titles, though this year repub-lished Michael Card’s 2000 A Violent Grace: Meeting Christ at the Cross, offering a com-panion live CD in collaboration with the singer’s label, Covenant Artists. “Retailers and consumers need to be made aware of the books, and print runs have to be man-aged well,” says Crosby.

Though Christmas might be a small window, “it’s one that opens every year,” observes Shauna Summers, executive editor

Holiday seasons like Christmas/Hanukkah and Lent/Passover/Easter are short and crowded sales windows, but they offer generous payouts to religion publishers who know how and when to position their titles.

Susan Salley

© J

ULI

E D

OW

D, 2

013

FEATURED IN MAGAZINETIME

AMAZING FAITH

ALSO:

• TIME Magazine cover and article • TIME Magazine Top 100 Most Influential People of 2013

• Charisma magazine • CharismaNews.com • Relevant magazine • Enrichment Journal

• Publishers Weekly • CNN Español • Associated Press• FOX News

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:• VP of Social Justice for the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, the largest Hispanic Christian organization, serving over 15 million believers• Former Commissioner for Chicago’s Zoning Board of Appeals• Founder and Executive Director of New Life Family Services• Sought-after motivational speaker at church and community events, schools and conferences • Globally-respected advocate for social justice

Fiercely dedicated to rebuilding lives through grace and compassion, Reverend Wilfredo “Choco” De Jesús is known throughout Chicago and across the country as a champion of change and a pioneer in urban compassion ministries.

•

Christian publishers who have been exploring ways to extend authors’ reach have augmented print materials with apps offer-ing interactive features that allow readers to learn more

about hyperlinked words or take digital notes on their mobile devices. Develop-ers working independently of book pub-lishers have started creating faith-related apps to commemorate holidays and anni-versaries, or to create communities of people interested in spiritual practices like meditation or Bible study.

Clear winners for publishing-related apps are those that complement chil-dren’s titles. Gary Chapman, author of the perennially bestselling The 5 Love Languages (Moody Publishers) recently released a children’s title, A Perfect Pet for Peyton. Janis Backing, publicity manager at Moody, says that creating an app for it drove a rise in sales. “Since this is our first app, we don’t have anything else to com-pare it to, but the feedback we’ve received from readers is they’re very pleased with the book, the story, and the way the app enhances the story,” she says.

Molly Kempf Hodgin, director of new

$1.99 and has logged over three million meditation sessions. Fullmer has added group features that offer forums so that people can meditate in virtual groups.

Sam Tannen, an independent developer based in Los Angeles, creates children’s content through his company, Corky Por-twine. He’s made a Hanukkah app in the past—such avenues for Jewish storytell-ing didn’t exist in his youth—but when his father mentioned that Passover was approaching, he developed Passover: The Ten Plagues, which he says has been his most popular app to date. He credits that to practice (he’s developed several other apps for children) and timing. “Explain-ing it to people is a challenge,” Tannen says. “I call it an interactive storybook, or a digital animated storybook. It’s easier just to show people.”

Other developers have been making holiday-related applications for adults as well. Downhill publishing released the Ultimate Digital Haggadah 2.0, offering readers an illuminated copy of the ancient text for Passover Seder dinners. Recognizing that they have a new oppor-tunity to reach readers with illuminated text, some religious magazine publishers are getting into the app market, too. In March, the Roman Catholic magazine Liguorian announced an app for iPads, iPhones, and the iPod Touch to debut for users with the 100th anniversary issue of the magazine. Users of the Liguorian app could download the issue for free.

Catholic publishers like Our Sunday Visitor have also started creating apps; several give easier access to content about saints from the book Our Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Saints, says Greg Pike, director of publishing operations. The most popular among them is Saint Names for Your Baby, though there is also a rosary app and an app for patron saints. Pike says that Our Sunday Visitor has intentionally avoided “dumping a book into an app.” Instead, he is aware that “as publishers, we’re all competing for time and attention. Some people fire up Facebook [on their phones], but oth-ers spend time connecting deeply with what they believe in.”. ■

R e l i g i o n U p d a t e F e a t u r e

P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY ■ M A Y 6 , 2 0 1 312

Category Apps Expand Audiences for Religion BooksBy J. Victoria Sanders

media for children’s and gift books at Thomas Nelson, says that apps for best-sellers like Jesus Calling and Max Luca-do’s Live Loved have been successful among consumers, with Bible study and devotional applications that allow users to highlight passages on a tablet while on the go in a way that isn’t as common with print copies anymore, she notes. The ease with which apps are shared as gifts has also helped.

Outside of Christian publishing, developers with faith-specific interests have experimented with creating appli-cations for niche audiences. Brad Fullmer, owner of Spotlight Six Software, got his first iPhone in 2008. As a meditator, he

noticed that while he liked the new phone, its timer sounds weren’t particularly pleasant. He created Insight Timer, an application that allows meditators worldwide to set any amount of medita-tion time they’d like, while also viewing a map of other meditators around the globe. “The whole idea behind the app at first was to make a

basic kind of timer—instead of having a nasty buzzing sound, [it’s] a beautiful bell.” More than four years later, the app is available across operating systems for

In 2013, apps are expected to generate $25 billion in reve-nue, according to a March forecast from ABI Research, which tracks mobile application trends. The popularity of tab-lets over smartphones is also expected to increase demand for apps, and developers who make apps with devotional or religious themes see potential to expand their audiences.

Janis Backing

© S

TE

PH

AN

IE H

OR

STK

OE

TT

ER

for moms chasing young children—and offers a study guide, Scripture index, and writing exercise for readers to create their own psalms.

“The takeaway for the book is knowing that we are not only loved by God, but are known by God, which makes us worth knowing,” says Rivadeneira. “We are worth knowing to those around us and our families, but it’s humbling and amaz-ing to know that God peeks into our souls and loves us, especially when we’re doing those tasks that seem so mundane.”

One of Rivadeneira’s goals is to be honest and transparent about her experi-ences as a mother, some of them beautiful and others not so pretty.

Of her devotional, Rivadeneira says, “Sometimes you come to a book and it can be off-putting if the author is an expert. But this is one struggling mom writing to another struggling mom. I try to be honest about my experiences, and in being known by God.” Rivadeneira has a novel, Shades of Mercy, co-written with Anita Lustrea, releasing from Moody’s River North Fiction imprint in September, and a nonfiction book tentatively titled Live on the Lookout coming out with InterVarsity Press in 2014. —Ann Byle

David Swanson

Helping the Living Help the DyingFor David Swanson, Everlasting Life (Baker Books, June) is the book he’s always wanted to write. As senior pastor

P r o f i l e s R e l i g i o n U p d a t e

W W W . P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY. C O M 13

Caryn Rivadeneira

One Mother to AnotherCaryn Rivadeneira has had her struggles as a mother of three. She’s been short-tempered, locked herself in a room to avoid the kids, and stood by and watched while her child had a major meltdown. Haven’t we all?

This mom has a heart for other moms and shares it in her newest book, Known and Loved: 52 Devotions from the Psalms (Revell, May; reviewed in this issue). The collection of weekly readings will get ready-made promotion under the Mothers of Preschoolers brand; MOPS is a resource organization with a Web site, magazine, annual convention, and associated books, now being published by Revell, includ-ing Known and Loved. The book’s theme is identity and takes readers through 10 principles that define Christian mother-hood, such as “You are held by God” and “You are given fresh starts.”

“For the first time in my career a proj-ect came to me via my agent. MOPS was looking for a devotional project with the theme of identity. My first book was on motherhood and identity, so I thought it would be cool to revisit that,” says Rivadeneira, who works part-time at Elmhurst Christian Reformed Church in Illinois. Her first book was Mama’s Got a Fake I.D.: How to Reveal the Real You Behind All That Mom (WaterBrook, 2009).

In Known and Loved, Rivadeneira uses the biblical book of Psalms to frame her collection of short devotionals—perfect

IN Profile of First Presbyterian Church of Orlando, Fla., he’s been in many situations involv-ing dying and grieving people.

Swanson, also author of Learning to Be You: How Our True Identity in Christ Sets Us Free (Baker Books, 2012), says, “When we know how the story turns out, it makes our experiences in the present more hopeful and meaningful.”

Everlasting Life is unapologetically an exploration of a Christian view of death. “Knowledge of heaven informs our pres-ent as Christians. Our attitude in the day-to-day will be very different because we know what will happen in the end,” says Swanson, who is also part of a nation-wide ministry called the Well that reaches more than 100,000 via Christian television each week.

A blend of advice and help for people in ministry like pastors and counselors, Everlasting Life also could be used in class by seminarians, by those who are facing death themselves or who are close to someone near death, or even by those who simply want to explore this endur-ing subject.

The genesis for Swanson’s book was a four-week sermon series he preached in 2006. It struck a chord, prompting many questions and eventually generating sev-eral classes at the church. Swanson has also accompanied many who are dying or grieving through that process, and seen others say dramatically wrong things (“It’s God’s will”; “Call me if there’s any-thing I can do”).“I want this book to help prepare people to have some idea of the dynamics and emotions of this process, to learn what helps and what doesn’t,” he says. “Because they’re afraid of saying the wrong thing, people don’t show up. I hope the book helps people overcome fear and equips them to say the right things.” His advice? Be present, be hope-ful, be prayerful.

Swanson admits that the book was dif-ficult to write at times because someone close to him had died. “Reliving that was emotional and draining, but cathartic in a way,” he says. “It helped me process a lot of my own feelings.”

—Ann Byle

Mary Hayes Grieco

Everyday Spirituality Two decades ago, when she published The Kitchen Mystic, (Hazeldon, 1992), Mary Hayes Grieco got the feeling it was a book that would be with her for a long time. This June, with the publication of The New Kitchen Mystic (Beyond Words, June 4), her intuition turns out to be true.

“Writing is a byproduct of my own spiritual questions,” says Grieco in an interview from her home in Minneapolis. Those questions drove the original edi-tion, which began as a series of columns in a local health and recovery journal. The columns were “my impulse to share my discovery process with other spiritual seekers,” she says.

The New Kitchen Mystic, which contains 11 new essays plus a new introduction, is about finding meaning, awareness, and mindfulness in even the most mundane activities. Grieco uses the metaphor of the kitchen as a place where people per-form everyday tasks in a way that is both functional and transformative.

Being a spiritual seeker, according to Grieco, means striving for a life of mean-ing in a complex world, and asking ques-tions of both the inner and outer spaces we inhabit. She describes it as “an ongo-ing dialogue between that part of God that’s inside of us and that part of God that’s all around us.”

Grieco’s work is also focused on an often-cited reason people embark on spiritual journeys—the process of asking for and bestowing forgiveness. Her 2011 book, Unconditional Forgiveness: A Simple and Proven Method to Forgive Everyone and Everything (Beyond Words), explored that theme in depth, reflecting her work as founder of the Midwest Institute for Forgiveness Training.

R e l i g i o n U p d a t e | P r o f i l e s

P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY ■ M A Y 6 , 2 0 1 314

She conducts forgiveness workshops for the general public; professional train-ing sessions for clergy, psychologists, and social workers; and church-based pro-grams for congregations. Her insights have clearly found an audience—Grieco’s e-mail newsletter, which she sends through her Web site, MaryHayes-Grieco.com, has some 3,500 subscribers, and 2,500 follow her on Facebook.

While Grieco describes Unconditional Forgiveness as a purely “how-to” book, The New Kitchen Mystic is a combination of how-to essays, storytelling, and philosoph-ical reflection. The topics are meant to appeal to the growing spiritual-but-not-religious segment of the U.S. population that is part of the “nones” because they don’t adhere to one particular tradition. Though the nones are much discussed today—mainly due to a Pew research study that showed one-fifth of Americans to be unaffiliated with any faith (and some to be atheists)—Grieco believes the spiri-tual-but-not-religious cohort was also her readers in 1992 when The Kitchen Mystic was first published. The yearnings haven’t changed, she says: “There’s a lot more per-mission [now] in our culture to be a none without being a weirdo,” says Grieco. “I think my audience before was [some of] the nones, and I think my audience today is also—but it is a larger audience.”

—Holly Lebowitz Rossi

Jamal Rahman

The Wisdom of IslamImam Jamal Rahman describes the spiritual life as a quest to become “a more complete human being.” He hopes his new book, Spiritual Gems of Islam: Insights and Practices from the Qur’an, Hadith, Rumi, and Muslim Teaching Stories to Enlighten the Heart

and Mind (SkyLight Paths, May; reviewed in this issue), will be a resource for anyone—Muslim or not, religious or not—who yearns for deeper meaning in their lives.

Rahman is a Sunni Muslim learned in the mystical tradition called Sufism. His grandfather was a “rainmaker, a scholar and mystic,” he says, who lived in northern Bengal, India. Rahman’s father, although trained in the Sufi traditions, was a diplo-mat.

Though he initially imagined follow-ing in his father’s footsteps as a diplomat, Rahman found himself drawn to his lin-eage of Sufi teachers and healers, espe-cially as he observed a growing number of people “hungering for spiritual resources for how to evolve fully,” he says. Looking back on the life-changing moment he committed to that path, Rahman reflects, “I decided to take a chance and fulfill my dream of creating community by taking what I had learned from my parents and other teachers.”

Rahman, now a U.S. citizen, first began teaching spiritual development workshops in his Seattle home in the early 1990s and soon expanded to become co -min i s t e r (w i th Rev. Dona ld Mackenzie) of the Interfaith Community Sanctuary, a congregation that now has more than 200 members.

In his book and in his interfaith work, Rahman says he finds that politics and even religion often distract from the deepest yearnings of the human heart. “In Islam, we say we are looking in the leaves and branches for what really appears in the roots.”

Spiritual Gems of Islam offers insights and practices on such topics as prayer, community, death, and happiness, guid-ing readers to complete “the inconve-nient work” of opening the heart, trans-forming the ego, and as Islamic tradition puts it, “sending out light from the heart to anyone you meet,” Rahman says.

This wisdom is intended for a wide audience. Rahman describes nonreli-gious spiritual seekers as “bees collecting nectar from many different flowers.” He urges readers who are rooted in one reli-gious tradition and are unsure whether

another faith’s teachings will confuse or water down their spiritual commit-ments, to think of interfaith learning as “having a major and a minor.”

“Don’t be scared that it’ll dilute your tradition or your attachment to your tra-dition,” he says. “It will enhance that attachment. Interfaith is not about con-version, it’s about completion.”

—Holly Lebowitz Rossi

Patty Kirk

Enjoying the Work of GodPatty Kirk’s Christian equation used to look like this: Duty + Guilt = Spiritual Value. But experience and maturity has taught her to look past that burdensome spiritual math to a new theorem: Desires + Joy = Pleasing God.

She posits this theory in her new book, The Easy Burden of Pleasing God (IVP, Mar.), one of the inaugural titles in the new IVP Crescendo line of books for women. Kirk offers readers a unique blend of personal stories, scriptural explication, and careful thought in a book that could free women (and men, too) from the long list of duties they feel God wants them to accomplish.

Kirk uses the story of her aging mother-in-law to describe the evolution of her thoughts on pleasing God. Mamaw lived in a house on her and her husband Kris’s Oklahoma farm, at first a great help in raising their two daughters. But age and dementia had turned visits to Mamaw’s house into dreaded duty. “I’d go down there to do my duty, but come away bitter,” says Kirk.

She realized, however, that by reading her work-in-progress to Mamaw she could delight both her beloved mother-in-law and herself. Mamaw listened and felt loved; Kirk read and felt joy in mak-

P r o f i l e s | R e l i g i o n U p d a t e

W W W . P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY. C O M 15

ing Mamaw happy.“Those visits transformed the business

of spending time with Mamaw into something wonderful, teaching me it was possible to turn what we perceive as duty into something we look forward to, that is rewarding and enjoyable,” says Kirk.

The more she thought about faith and how the faithful tend to make their God-work a duty, the more she deepened her understanding of Jesus’ words. Despite what we may think, following Jesus isn’t meant to be a chore: He says in the book of Matthew, chapter 11, verse 30: “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Says Kirk, who teaches half-time at Brown University in Arkansas and writes half-time, “[Now] when I undertake to do anything of a spiritual nature, I set out to find it enjoyable. I select what I’m going to do on that basis. Even when it’s something I have to do, I am determined to find enjoyment in it.” —Ann Byle

Ian Punnett

Too Angry to Pray?Ian Punnett writes what he knows. The author of How to Pray When You’re Pissed at God (Harmony, May; reviewed in PW, Mar. 11) has prayed a few angry prayers, especially after tinnitus, with ringing and noises in the ears that make it diffi-cult to sleep, forced him to leave his posi-tion as cohost of the popular radio pro-gram Coast to Coast AM.

“As awful as this is—and it is awful—it’s not cancer, my children are well, I’ve had a very successful career. There are many things to be grateful for,” he says. But knowing that things could be worse doesn’t stop people from feeling angry. Punnett knows this firsthand as a deacon in the Episcopal Church, where he has

ministered to many with problems that have sparked anger with God.

The idea that someone could express anger at God first struck him when he saw a priest played by Gene Hackman yell at God in the 1972 movie The Poseidon Adventure. “I was shocked and amazed that a person of faith could do that,” he says. His 11-year-old’s logic told him: “You yell at God, you die.”

Years later, the concept of being angry with God resurfaced while at Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta he was studying the “anger psalms” (e.g., Psalm 44: “Awake, Lord! Why do you sleep?... Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?...”). After vent-ing, the writers seemed to feel better, he noticed. He saw a process: recognize how you feel; work and pray through it; be released and healed.

When Punnett served as a chaplain intern in hospitals, anger with God was a central feature in his discussions with patients and family members. “People were too mad to pray, yet prayer was what they craved the most,” he says.

Punnett says How to Pray When You’re Pissed at God is a tool that can be placed in the hands of those feeling anger with God, though not everyone will embrace it, he knows. One conservative religion publisher acknowledged a need for the topic, but passed on such a risky title, Punnett says. The word “pissed” isn’t a gimmick, he insists, because that word came up most in his conversations with angry people. “It expresses a more acute type of anger. They weren’t upset, or angry. They were pissed.”

The potentially offensive word has been dropped from the book’s URL to the official Web site www.howtopraybook.com, so churches and pastors can provide a link to the material without embarrass-ment, as a tool to help people say what they mean and speak from the heart.

The Bible isn’t a sanitized version of life, Punnett says. It captures the emo-tions of real life “and that is why it still speaks.” God is willing to listen to humans speak, too, even when they are angry.” —Lauren Yarger

whose crisis of faith inopportunely mani-fests itself in a sermon to his congregation. He’s urged to take some time off and flees to visit a relative in Italy who happens to be a Franciscan

priest. As Chase travels to restore himself spiritually, he learns about Francis of Assisi and what people of faith should be doing in their churches. Other authors would tackle this subject and crank out predictable, unoriginal nonfiction; Cron’s clever spin and gentle critique makes it fresh and lets it speak outside an evangelical Christian audience. Think the Italy part of Eat Pray, Love, minus the self-indulgence. Agent: Lee Hough, Alive Communications. (May)

Spiritual Gems of Islam: Insights & Practices from the Qur’an, Hadith, Rumi & Muslim Teaching Stories to Enlighten the Heart and MindImam Jamal Rahman. SkyLight Paths, $16.99 trade paper (176p) ISBN 978-1-59473-430-4

Rahman, one of the three Interfaith Amigos who have collaborated on

two books, is a Muslim Sufi minister in Seattle, and he compiles “gems” of Islamic spirituality. He cites short verses from the Qur’an, hadith (sayings of Muhammad), and Sufi poets, especially the popular 13th-century mystic Rumi; he then offers expo-sition that teases out the meaning and application of the verse and concludes with short suggestions for spiritual practices. Rahman’s frame of reference is Sufism, the mystical school of Islam, so his focus is devotional. Yet he is skilled at weaving anecdotes from his everyday experiences into his discussion of Islamic teachings. Those who appreciate the poet Rumi will be able to locate their literary understand-ing in a religious context. And non-Mus-lims can learn Islam’s 99 names—attri-butes—of God, listed in an appendix, a short but powerful devotional and theo-logical lesson. (May) ■

R e l i g i o n U p d a t e R e v i e w s

P U B L I S H E R S W E E K LY ■ M A Y 6 , 2 0 1 316

Daily Wisdom: Islamic Prayers and SupplicationsAbdur Raheem Kidwai. Kube (Consortium, dist.), $18 (416p) ISBN 978-1-84774-043-4

This beautiful prayer book is part of a Daily Wisdom series by Kidwai, pro-

fessor of English at Aligarh Muslim Uni-versity in Aligarh, India. It contains 365 short prayers in English with Arabic ver-sions on facing pages. A helpful and detailed index lists topics and related prayers so that the reader can find prayers about, say, worry, children, or illness. The prayers are drawn from the Qur’an and had-ith, the sayings of the Prophet Muham-mad. The volume includes decorative end-papers and a ribbon marker, making it a nice gift, especially for students of Arabic or those interested in interfaith relations. It also provides a glimpse of Islamic piety, with its emphasis on petitionary prayer and dependence on Allah for meeting needs both daily (a prayer on seeing someone smiling) and extraordinary (a prayer when facing a calamity). (July)

Everlasting Life: How God Answers Our Questions about Grief, Loss, and the Promise of HeavenDavid D. Swanson. Baker, $13.99 trade paper (192p) ISBN 978-0-8010-1446-8

Swanson, pastor of the 4,000-member First Presbyterian Church of Orlando,

Fla., wrestles honestly with end-of-life questions and considerations about death and the Christian understanding of eternal life. He draws on 23 years of pastoral expe-rience as well as the Bible and other writers on the subject (C.S. Lewis, Viktor Frankl), so his observations are informed and judi-cious. They are also traditional (heaven is first-class and forever and people will live there in glorified bodies), but more grown-

Books inBrief

up than some currently popular views of eternity. The book’s strength lies in the understanding of grief and suggestions for responding to it. So many need help on this sensitive subject, and sections on what to say and what not to say are both apt. This book will speak most clearly to those already strongly grounded in traditional Christian faith, which the author views as the best bulwark against death and its com-panions, grief and loss. (June)

Known and Loved: 52 Devotions from the PsalmsCaryn Rivadeneira. Revell, $12.99 trade paper (192p) ISBN 978-0-8007-2207-4

Rivadeneira (Grumble Hallelujah) offers 52 short reflections on passages from

the biblical Book of Psalms. The book is targeted at mothers of young children—it bears a Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) “seal”—who will particularly appreciate the brevity of each section, which can be consumed like a scriptural vitamin. Rivad-eneira writes in a chatty, girlfriendly tone for her intended audience, although some may find it flat and/or culturally clichéd (a reference to Downton Abbey, for example). From a faith perspective, the author offers encouragement and reassurance, qualities that mothers are long on. She also unpacks what might seem like remote and time-bound biblical passages about sheep or military trumpet blasts to show their con-temporary application. The book will work best as gentle Bible study for suburban mothers. Agent: Andrea Heinecke, Alive Com-munications. (May)

★ Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim’s TaleIan Morgan Cron. Zondervan, $14.99 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-0-310-33669-3

Cron (Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me) is an underrated author who has the

good luck of having written a parable about the saint whose name was recently taken by Francis I, the new pope. Even better, the tale is engaging, as good parables ought to be. Hero Chase Falson is the pastor of an evangelical megachurch in New England

Not a Fan by Kyle IdlemanWith frankness sprinkled with humor, Idleman in-vites you to live the way Jesus lived, love the way heloved, pray the way he prayed, and never give up liv-ing for the One who gave his all for you. UnabridgedPerformed by the Author

Think Bigby Ben Carson, M.D., with Cecil MurphyThis book is for you if your life is a series of shat-tered dreams. From the author of four bestsellingbooks—Gifted Hands, Think Big, The Big Pic-ture, and Take the Risk. UnabridgedPerformed by Richard Allen

Grace, Gold, & GloryGabrielle Douglas with Michelle BurfordIn this personal autobiography, US gymnastGabrielle Douglas tells her story of faith, persever-ance, and determination, demonstrating that youcan reach your dreams if you let yourself soar.Unabridged

Through My Eyes—Young Readers Edition by Tim Tebow with Nathan WhitakerTim Tebow shares the behind-the-scenes details ofhis life, both on and off the football field, revealinghow his Christian faith, his family values, and his re-lentless will to succeed have molded him into theperson and the athlete he is today. UnabridgedPerformed by Adam Verner

Made to Crave by Lysa TerKeurstTapping into the desires God gave us to consumefood…without letting food consume us—from NewYork Times bestselling author and national speakerLysa TerKerust UnabridgedPerformed by Jill Brennan

All Titles Also Available as Library Editions on Compact Disc and MP3-CD

BrillianceAudio

One Thousand Gifts by Ann VosKampA profoundly personal, honest, and fresh way tofind joy in all aspects of life and to record yourown one thousand gifts—a companion to thebestselling book. UnabridgedPerformed by the Author

&Now Distributing Audiobooks

on Compact Disc and MP3-CD for

PW May6 2013_Layout 1 4/30/13 6:13 PM Page 3

Gods at Warby Kyle IdlemanA follow-up to the powerfulmessage of the bestselling book,Not a Fan, by the lead teachingpastor of the 5th largest churchin the country UnabridgedPerformed byMacLeod Andrews

Blue Like Jazzby Donald MillerDonald Miller's fresh and orig-inal voice may change the wayChristian's view the "statusquo" faith and build a bridge toseekers who believe that organ-ized religion doesn't meet theirspiritual needs. AbridgedPerformed by the Author

Deep & Wideby Andy StanleyAuthor and pastor Andy Stan-ley brings to life from Scriptureand over 25 years of pastoralexperience the irresistible na-ture of this movement knownas the Church. UnabridgedPerformed by Tom Parks

Gifted Handsby Ben Carson, M.D.,with Cecil MurphyThe story of Ben Carson, M.D.will inspire listeners as theywatch an inner-city youngsterrise to become director of pedi-atric neurosurgery at JohnsHopkins University Hospital.UnabridgedPerformed by Dion Graham

Openby Craig Gross with Adam Palmer In every area of our lives, it’stime to go beyond self-help. . .it’s time to get accountable.UnabridgedPerformed by Van Tracy

Sacred Marriageby Gary ThomasWriter and speaker Gary Thomasinvites listeners to see how Godcan use marriage as a disciplineand a motivation to love him moreand reflect more of the characterof his Son.UnabridgedPerformed by the Author

Seven Menby Eric MetaxasFrom the New York Times best-selling author of Bonhoeffer,Seven Men offers answers in thecaptivating stories of some of thegreatest men who have ever lived.UnabridgedPerformed by Tom Parks

Graceby Max LucadoFrom the bestselling authorMax Lucado, the first in a col-lection of books that delve intothe drenching of God’s grace onhis people. UnabridgedPerformed by Wayne Shepherd

on Compact Disc and MP3-CD

What’s So Amazing About Grace?by Philip YanceyFrom the winner of the Gold Medallion Book Award, the ChristianBook of the Year Award, and the Retailers Choice Award—an insightfulexploration of grace, the most powerful force in the universe and ouronly hope for love and forgiveness. UnabridgedPerformed by Bill Richards

BrillianceAudioNow Distributing Audiobooks for

1-800-648-2312Fax: 616-846-0630 • Email: asksales@brillianceaudio.com

©2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc. All rights reserved . Brilliance Audio™ is a trademark of Brilliance Audio, Inc.

RETAILERS & RESELLERS: http:// reseller.brillianceaudio.com LIBRARIES: http:// library.brillianceaudio.com

Available August 2013

&

PW May6 2013_Layout 1 4/30/13 5:52 PM Page 4