cover image EVERY SAINT HAS A PAST, EVERY SINNER HAS A FUTURE: Seven Steps to the Spiritual and Material Riches of Life

EVERY SAINT HAS A PAST, EVERY SINNER HAS A FUTURE: Seven Steps to the Spiritual and Material Riches of Life

Terry Cole-Whittaker, . . Putnam/Tarcher, $24.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-1-58542-095-7

In the 1980s, Reverend Cole-Whittaker, a New Age guru preaching a prosperity gospel, climbed book charts with How to Have More in a Have-Not World. Now she's back, with a new set of tips for having more. Perhaps taking a cue from Deepak Chopra (The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success), Cole-Whittaker gives seven steps to achieving personal prosperity. First, she says, readers have to know what they want—and aim high! They shouldn't be afraid to ask for their heart's desire, especially of God, who, Cole-Whittaker assures us, always answers prayers (though not always immediately). Some of her lessons are a tad obvious (step four is "Do What Works, and Don't Do What Doesn't"), but others, such as her reminder that readers shouldn't be overly attached to any given person, place or thing, are stirring. The book is well-written, Cole-Whittaker's straightforward prose shot through with autobiographical snippets and vignettes about her friends and students. This book should appeal to two types of readers: general New Age self-help buffs (Neale Donald Walsch fans, take note) and culture watchers who will wonder just what happened to the good Reverend in the decade-plus she was out of the public eye. The answer seems to be not much: the you-can-have-it-all message of her new book has emerged untouched from the yuppie decade. (May)

Forecast: How to Have More in a Have-Not World sold more than a million copies and was a New York Times #1 bestseller. Tarcher plans a 10-city book tour and 20-city radio satellite tour to promote the self-help guru's new title, which has an initial print run of 25,000 copies. Cole-Whittaker will also appear on the cover of Science of the Mind magazine.