May 16, 2007   • BEHIND THE NEWS   • It's a Simpsons Summer   • Augsburg Fortress Finally in the Black • SPOTLIGHT ON...Muslims in Fiction   • Post-9/11, It's the Only Place to Transcend Labels • RELIGION IN REVIEW   • Four Reviews Coming in Publishers Weekly on Monday, May 28   • A Starred Review Coming in PW on Monday, May 28 • BESTSELLERS: May PW Religion Bestsellers • COMING ATTRACTIONS • HOW TO SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE BEHIND THE NEWS It's a Simpsons Summer by Juli Cragg Hilliard This Sunday, May 20, brings the historic 400th episode of The Simpsons, making it the longest-lived sitcom ever. "It puts them in the pantheon of American television," religion journalist and Simpsons expert Mark Pinsky told RBL. "I think it just passed Ozzie and Harriet and it's closing in on Gunsmoke." Add to that the July 27 worldwide opening of The Simpsons Movie and the June 1 release of the new, expanded edition of Pinsky's The Gospel According to The Simpsons (Westminster John Knox, 2001), and it's shaping up to be a summer with Simpsons sizzle. Universal Studios announced last month that its theme parks in Orlando, Fla., and Hollywood, Calif., would both add Simpsons-themed rides in spring 2008. Read the full story... Augsburg Fortress Finally in the Black by Lynn Garrett Augsburg Fortress, the publishing arm of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), reported last week it finished 2006 in the black for the first time "in many years," with $20,000 in operating income. According to CFO John Rahja, the positive fiscal year was mainly attributable to $6.2 million in sales of Evangelical Lutheran Worship, a new series of ELCA worship resources introduced in October 2006. Total net sales in fiscal 2006 for Augsburg Fortress were $44.3 million, well above the publisher's budgeted forecast of $40 million, Rahja said in a report to the publisher's board of trustees, which met in Minneapolis April 20-21. In recent years the press has battled for its very survival. In an interview with the ELCA News Service, Beth A. Lewis, president and chief executive officer of Augsburg Fortress, said, "We're not in a place where we can just now rest on our laurels. We have to continue to listen and learn and serve and create high-quality resources." Lewis added that finishing 2006 in the black financially "takes some of the pressure off" of the press's employees. Read the full story...   SPOTLIGHT ON...Muslims in Fiction Post-9/11, It's the Only Place to Transcend Labels by Andrea Useem With a title like The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid's new novel (Harcourt, April) invites readers to expect a story of religion gone bad. But instead of radical preaching or religious fervor, the book details the transformation of Changez, an Ivy League-educated Pakistani whose love affair with a wealthy, troubled American and elite but morally questionable job lead him, in the aftermath of 9/11, to loath the country he once embraced. The title, Hamid told RBL, is a "deliberate misnomer." Changez, who drinks whiskey and never even thinks of attending a mosque, is not a devout Muslim but rather a "secular Western rationalist," according to Hamid. But when America begins to bomb Afghanistan—a neighbor to his homeland—Changez "starts to think of himself ethnically, almost tribally, as a Muslim," Hamid said, even as his dark skin and beard evoke fear and suspicion in the Americans around him. The point, said Hamid, is that today's violent conflicts are political, not religious. Post-9/11, Westerners tend to reduce Muslims to religious labels. "I am a man, a novelist, a husband, son, brother, a Londoner, a Pakistani, a guy who likes sushi—and I'm a Muslim. Today, it's as if that last facet is the thing on which I must be judged," said Hamid. Read the full story... RELIGION IN REVIEW Four Reviews Coming in Publishers Weekly on Monday, May 28 The Bone Gatherers: The Lost Worlds of Early Christian Women Nicola Denzey. Beacon, $27.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-8070-1308-3 In late antiquity, pious Christian women buried the remains of saints and martyrs, sometimes on land the women themselves owned. READ FULL REVIEW Pure Magic: A Complete Course in Spellcasting Judika Illes. Red Wheel/Weiser, $16.95 paper (304p) ISBN 978-1-57863-391-3 While millions have been drawn into the magical worlds of Harry Potter, Charmed, and Sabrina, how many have realized that the art of spellcasting should not be considered out of reach? READ FULL REVIEW Hullabaloo: Discovering Glory in Everyday Life Timothy Paul Jones. Cook Communications, $11.99 paper (192p) ISBN 978-0-7814-4483-5 "Hullaballoo" is a quirky word, and this is an equally quirky book, full of Jones's wit, sarcasm and humorous stories. READ FULL REVIEW Everyday Herbs in Spiritual Life: A Guide to Many Practices Michael J. Caduto. SkyLight Paths, $16.99 (176p) ISBN 978-1-59473-174-7 Caduto, a storyteller, accomplished author, and Aesop Prize winner, reminds readers that Eastern and Western medicine grew in large part out of a relationship to healing properties found in the natural world, and offers this book to help us remember this powerful spiritual connection to "a gift from the Creator." READ FULL REVIEW A Starred Review Coming in PW on Monday, May 28 The Integral Vision: A Very Short Introduction to the Revolutionary Integral Approach to Life, God, the Universe and Everything Ken Wilber. Shambhala, $15.95 (224p) ISBN 978-1-59030-475-4 Philosopher, psychologist, and mystic Wilber (A Brief History of Everything) delivers on the subtitle's far-reaching promise. In a scant 200+ pages chock full of handsome illustrations and spare, Zen-like diagrams and tables, he forges ahead on his established path, posing, "What if we attempted to find the critically essential keys to human growth, based on the sum total of human knowledge now open to us?" His answer is a kind of meta-structure of human experience, and, more important, human potential. His Integral Map, or Integral Operating System (IOS), of "quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types" is drawn from developmental psychology, worldviews, multiple intelligences, gender studies, the nature of consciousness, etc. If this sounds heady and extremely ambitious, it is. Wilber asserts that the IOS approach to life permits all fields of endeavor at last to speak with one another in a common language. Clearly, however, spirituality dominates much of his thought. Not for the faint of brain, Wilber's work here is still accessible and at times surprisingly practical. Some language spirals up majestically, recalling great Eastern texts. Reminiscent in spirit and watershed import of Ram Dass's Be Here Now, Wilber may well have created a popular classic for explorers on the frontiers of humanity. (Aug. 14) BESTSELLER BYTES Chart Topper Commentary by Daisy Maryles Kingdom Come by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, the 16th and last book in the Left Behind series, is actually a sequel to the entire series. It spent four weeks in April on PW's weekly hardcover fiction bestseller chart. Tyndale reported a 300,000-copy first printing and a 10,000 second—a healthy figure, albeit much smaller than the million-plus stats of earlier titles. Since its initial release in 1995, the Left Behind series has sold more than 43 million copies and paved the way for general-interest booksellers' increased support of faith fiction. All 16 Left Behind titles have appeared on PW's bestseller lists—hardcover and/or paperback. Read the full story... PW RELIGION BESTSELLERS: May Hardcover Kingdom Come Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Tyndale, $25.99 ISBN 978-0-8423-6061-6 The Power of Simple Prayer Joyce Meyer. FaithWords, $22.99 ISBN 78-0-446-53196-2 Grace (Eventually) Anne Lamott. Riverhead, $24.95 ISBN 978-0-5944-8942-6 The God Delusion Richard Dawkins. Houghton Mifflin, $27 ISBN 0-618-68000-4 Get Out of That Pit! Straight Talk About God's Deliverance Beth Moore. Thomas Nelson/Integrity, $24.99 ISBN 978-0-5914-5552-9 Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality Robert Arroyo. Doubleday, $16.95 ISBN 978 0-385-51985-4 Prayer: Does it Make Any Difference? Philip Yancey. Zondervan, $21.99 ISBN ISBN 978-0-310-27105-5 Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul John and Stasi Eldredge. Thomas Nelson, $22.95 ISBN 978-0-7852-6469-9 Your Best Life Now Joel Osteen. FaithWords, $19.95 ISBN 0-446-53275-4 Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires, the Respect He Desperately Needs Emerson Eggerichs. Thomas Nelson/Integrity, $21.99 ISBN 978-0-5914-5187-7 Paperback 90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death and Life Don Piper with Cecil Murphey. Baker/Revell, $24.99 ISBN 0-8007-5949-4 Forever Karen Kingsbury. Tyndale, $13.99 ISBN 978-0-4143-0764-0 The Five Love Languages Gary Chapman. Moody/Northfield, $12.99 ISBN 1-881273-15-6 The Purpose-Driven Life Rick Warren. Zondervan. $14.99 ISBN 978-0-310-24756-2 Battlefield of the Mind Joyce Meyer. FaithWords, $14.99 ISBN 0-446-69109-7 Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality Donald Miller. Thomas Nelson, $13.99 ISBN 0-7852-6370-5 Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul. John Eldredge. Thomas Nelson, $14.99 ISBN 978-0-7852-8796-4 Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why Bart D. Ehrman. Harper San Francisco, $14.95 ISBN 978-0-06-085951-0 Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis. Harper San Francisco, $10 ISBN 0-06-065292-6 Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World John Hagee. Strang/FrontLine, $14.99 ISBN 0-8423-8744-7     COMING ATTRACTIONS Next week in RBL, we'll profile Eboo Patel, author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, The Struggle for the Soul of a Generation.   PW Religion BookLine from Publishers Weekly Editors: Lynn Garrett (lgarrett@reedbusiness.com); Daisy Maryles (dmaryles@reedbusiness.com) Contributing Editor: Jana Riess © 2007 Reed Business Information. Published weekly. If your links aren't working, you can view this newsletter by copy and pasting the following URL into your browser: publishersweekly.com/eNewsletter/CA6442521/2287.html To read past issues, click here. 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