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  January 30, 2008
 
• BEHIND THE NEWS
  • Christian Products Regionals Draw More Retailers
• SHORT TAKES
  • Broncos Kicker Tours Iraq; Hachette Signs Jay Bakker
• AUTHOR PROFILE
  • Jamie Korngold: "Adventure Rabbi" Leads People into God's Country
• RELIGION IN REVIEW
  • Four Reviews Coming in Publishers Weekly on Monday, February 11
  • Three Starred Reviews Coming in PW on Monday, February
  • A Starred Review Coming in PW's Fiction Section
  • An Original RBL Review
• BESTSELLERS: January Catholic Bestsellers
• COMING ATTRACTIONS
• HOW TO SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE
BEHIND THE NEWS
Christian Products Regionals Draw More Retailers
by Lynn Garrett
The Munce Group, a 600-member marketing services group for independent Christian retailers ("Christian Indies Banding Together to Survive," Nov. 5, 2007), held its two regional trade shows this month, both of which saw markedly higher attendance than last year. CPE Regionals East in Hershey, Penn., January 6-8 drew retailers from 174 stores—up nearly 70% over last year. CPE Regionals West, held Jan.16-18 in Riverside, Calif., drew representatives from 104 stores, up almost 25% over last year. 

Open to all Christian independents regardless of whether they are affiliated with Munce, the CPE Regionals offer training, an exhibit floor, large group supplier presentations, evening entertainment and worship services. Bob Munce, president of the Munce Group, said that this year the majority of retailer attendees at the East show were not Munce members; COO Kirk Blank added that the ratio was about 50/50 for the West show. (Blank estimates Munce members make up 40% of Christian indies.) The number one reason for the significant uptick in attendance this year, Blank said, was the end of CBA Expo, which left no winter buying show for Christian stores; he added this has become all the more important since some suppliers have cut back on their field sales teams. 

Read the full story...
SHORT TAKES
Broncos Kicker Tours Iraq; Hachette Signs Jay Bakker
by Lynn Garrett
Jason Elam, Denver Broncos All-Pro kicker and two-time Super Bowl winner, is touring Iraq this week and next (Jan. 28-Feb. 8) to visit the troops as part of the Super Sunday Tour. Elam just published his first novel, Monday Night Jihad with coauthor Steve Yohn (Tyndale House). The central character of the book serves in the Air Force Special Ops in Afghanistan and goes on to play pro football. Those on the tour—which includes both players and cheerleaders—will watch the Patriots and the Giants play in the Super Bowl along with the troops. Elam is blogging and posting pictures from the tour on www.mondaynightjihad.com.

Hachette Book Group division FaithWords has signed Jay Bakker—son of Jim and Tammy Faye—to a two-book deal. Bakker watched his parents’ television ministry implode in the PTL scandal when he was 11 years old. He left the church, became addicted to drugs and alcohol, and later recommitted himself to Christianity. Bakker now heads his own ministry, Revolution, which holds services in a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The first book under contract—“an exploration of the true inclusive message of the grace and love of Jesus,” according to FaithWords—will be published in 2009. A DVD of One Punk Under God—part of a Sundance documentary series—shows Bakker in action and came out last May. Bakker’s first book, a memoir entitled Son of a Preacher Man, was published by Harper San Francisco in 2001.

Read the full story...
 
AUTHOR PROFILE
Jamie Korngold: "Adventure Rabbi" Leads People into God's Country
by Marcia Z. Nelson

From ski bum to rabbi has made one interesting journey, spiritually and literally, for Jamie Korngold, author of the forthcoming God in the Wilderness: Rediscovering the Spirituality of the Great Outdoors with the Adventure Rabbi (Three Leaves/Doubleday, April; starred review in this issue). A Reform rabbi, Korngold began the Adventure Rabbi program in 2001 as a way of uniting her love of the outdoors with outreach to those American Jews who were more likely to be outside a synagogue than in one. The Adventure Rabbi program, which has brought Shabbat services and scripture study to ski slopes and mountain meadows, was the next logical leap of faith for a woman whose eclectic resume includes a cross-country bicycle trip when she was a teenager, a summer job as an outdoor musician in Sapporo, Japan, and fourth place in a national telemark mogul skiing championship. "It started out as my little dream," said Korngold, who lives in the Rocky Mountain foothills of Boulder, Colo., with her husband and two children, one of whom is an infant. "I sometimes feel like I just jumped in front of the parade."

Read the full story...
RELIGION IN REVIEW
Four Reviews Coming in Publishers Weekly on Monday, February 11
We Plan, God Laughs: 10 Steps to Finding Your Divine Path When Life Is Not Turning Out Like You Wanted
Sherre Hirsch. Doubleday, $18.95 (208p) ISBN 978-0-385-52361-5
Hirsch, a rabbi who has counseled many individuals over the years, puts their stories to good use as she proffers 10 steps to self-improvement and spiritual health.
READ FULL REVIEW
In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God
Gene Robinson. Morehouse, $25 (176p) ISBN 978-1-59627-088-6
In this meandering but charming book, Robinson, the controversial gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, addresses sexuality and theology.
READ FULL REVIEW
The Promise: God's Purpose and Plan for When Life Hurts
Jonathan Morris. HarperOne, $24.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-06-135341-3
Morris, a Roman Catholic priest and Fox News analyst, draws from his religious tradition, as well as his experiences in the world of media, to present understandable and genuine advice for those who suffer—in other words, everyone.
READ FULL REVIEW
Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: Body
Edited by Elliot N. Dorff and Louis E. Newman. Jewish Publication Society, $16 paper (160p) ISBN 978-0-8276-0860-3
What is the Jewish position on tattoos, eating disorders and body piercings? According to this book on Judaism and the body, that's actually the wrong question: it's not about claiming the Jewish position on any issue, but finding a Jewish ethic that successfully addresses Torah, tradition and beliefs.
READ FULL REVIEW
Three Starred Reviews Coming in PW on Monday, February 11
Life with God: Reading the Bible for Spiritual Transformation
Richard Foster. HarperOne, $24.95 (224p) ISBN 978-0-06-083697-9
Foster (Celebration of Discipline) has built a career exploring foundational spiritual practices like fasting, prayer, study and worship. Here he zeroes in on Bible study to help Christians grow in their faith. Although Bible study is nothing if not a well-trod topic, Foster breathes new life into it by drawing on ancient resources: he is especially interested in the age-old practice of lectio divina, sacred reading that requires the attention of both mind and heart. Foster cautions several times that lectio divina is neither a magical solution to problems nor an approach that "bypasses the living God by treating the Scriptures as a sort of Ouija board." He warns that the Bible is also not an owner's manual for successful living, or even moral living; we shouldn't read it merely to serve our own needs. Rather, lectio divina offers an invitation to explore the Bible as a story (or a complex group of stories) and enter its river of life. As usual, Foster's work is not for those readers who are seeking quick answers or a behavioral checklist of what the Bible says they should do. Rather, it is a deep reflective guide to spiritual rumination and growth. (Apr. 22)
God in the Wilderness: Rediscovering the Spirituality of the Great Outdoors with the Adventure Rabbi
Rabbi Jamie S. Korngold. Three Leaves Press/Doubleday, $11.95 paper (160p) ISBN 978-0-385-52049-2
Rabbi Korngold revels in nature, and she seeks to share that joy as founder of the Adventure Rabbi program to help people reconnect to Judaism via the great outdoors. She has also discovered a way—call it a language, a spirit, an essence—with which to express the simplicity of a back-to-basics spirituality. Balancing an in-depth knowledge of scripture with a wry sense of humor and a compassion for nature, Korngold reminds us of "the nooks and crannies of the natural world" and says that "we must seek them out, soak them in and care for them." The variety of personal stories, tales of travel with various Adventure Rabbi groups and contemporary alternative biblical outcomes—what if Moses had been too busy texting to notice the burning bush?—make for a book that is easily digestible but at the same time worth savoring. Purposely sized to fit easily into a backpack or pocket, the call to return to the wild—or at least your local city park—is ever-present. While certainly aimed at adventuresome readers, the book's message, filled with depictions of fire, water, earth and sky, simultaneously encourages individual exploration and communal responsibility. (Apr. 8)
Who On Earth Was Jesus? The Modern Quest for the Jesus of History
David Boulton. O Books [NBN, dist.], $29.95 paper (448p) ISBN 978-1-84694-018-7
What happens when the Christ of faith meets the Jesus of history? How can it be that "scholars can arrive at such startlingly different interpretations of the reported sayings [of Jesus], and thereby such very different profiles of Jesus himself"? This is the question that preoccupies Boulton in an amazingly good synthesis of historical Jesus scholarship. Boulton gives an overview of several factions of Jesus scholars, comparing their conclusions and explaining their theses. His scope is as wide-ranging as it is even-handed; from theologians to scholars to popes, he distills their thoughts into a comprehensible and comprehensive survey of the best of the contemporary thinkers. Boulton is a British Quaker, and has been involved in trans-denominational religious activities for many years. Readers will find no overt proselytizing in this book. Instead, the author treats them to an unbiased look at the ever-changing discipline of Jesus studies. In the end, Boulton understands that it is not the scholar, nor the theologian, who will define the kingdom on Earth. Rather, it will be the job of all of us to discern the Jesus of today from words written long ago. This book is not to be missed. (Apr.)
A Starred Review Coming in PW's Fiction Section
Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana
Anne Rice. Knopf, $25.95 (256p) ISBN 978-1-400094352-1
In the New Testament, the miracle at the wedding at Cana—where Jesus turned water into wine—marks the commencement of his tumultuous three-year ministry. In Rice's beautifully observed novel (a sequel to 2005's Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt), however, the wedding miracle is in fact the culmination of an intimate family saga of love, sorrow and misunderstanding. As the novel opens, Yeshua (Jesus) struggles with a sense of restlessness of purpose and a deep love for a comely kinswoman. Waves of isolation sweep over him as he comes to understand that serving the Lord's will takes precedence over the desires of his own heart. Whereas the first novel in this series hewed so closely to Scripture and to the author's meticulous research as to be somewhat arid as fiction, this book imagining the "lost" young adulthood of Jesus offers wise and haunting speculation where the Bible is silent. And the final chapters, which pick up the story with the New Testament's accounts of Jesus' baptism, temptation, and early miracles, manage to be soulfully insightful even while faithfully tracking the Gospels. Rice undertakes a delicate balance here: How can a writer make a believably sensitive and wounded protagonist out of someone who is believed to be sinless? If it is possible to create a character that is simultaneously fully human and fully divine, as ancient Christian creeds assert, then Rice succeeds. (Mar. 4)
An Original RBL Review
Surprised By Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
N.T. Wright. HarperOne, $24.95 (336p) ISBN 978-0-06-155182-6
Wright, one of the greatest, and certainly most prolific, Bible scholars in the world, will touch a nerve with this book. What happens when we die? How should we think about heaven, hell, purgatory and eternal life? Wright critiques the views of heaven that have become regnant in Western culture, especially the assumption of the continuance of the soul after death in a sort of blissful non-bodily existence. This is simply not Christian teaching, Wright insists. The New Testament's clear witness is to the resurrection of the body, not the migration of the soul. And not right away, but only when Jesus returns in judgment and glory. The "paradise," the experience of being "with Christ" spoken of occasionally in the scriptures, is a period of waiting for this return. But Christian teaching of life after death should really be an emphasis on "life after life after death"—the resurrection of the body, which is also the ground for all faithful political action, as the last part of this book argues. Wright's prose is as accessible as it is learned—an increasingly rare combination. No one can doubt his erudition or the greatness of the churchmanship of the Anglican Bishop of Durham. One wonders, however, at the regular citation of his own previous work. And no other scholar can get away so cleanly with continuing to propagate the "hellenization thesis," by which the early church is eventually polluted by contaminating Greek philosophical influence. (Feb.)
CHILDREN'S RELIGION IN REVIEW
Children’s Religion Reviews that appeared in PW on January 28
The Light of the World: The Life of Jesus for Children
Katherine Paterson, illus. by François Roca. Scholastic/Levine, $17.99 (48p) ISBN 978-0-545-01172-3
As Newbery Medalist Paterson (Bridge to Terabithia) distills key events in the life of Jesus, her unfettered prose is sure to prove inviting to young readers.
READ FULL REVIEW
How Big Is God?
Lisa Tawn Bergren, illus. by Laura J. Bryant. HarperBlessings, $10.99 ISBN 978-0-06-113174-5
A mother leads her son through a conversation about God in this smoothly conceived if slightly bland picture book.
READ FULL REVIEW
Jesus Loves Me!
Tim Warnes. S&S/Little Simon Inspirations, $7.99 (26p) ISBN 978-1-4169-5367-8
Now available as a board book, Warnes’s interpretation of the popular hymn racks up big points for its beguiling watercolors of a friendly bear family whose straightforward piety is rooted in the affection among parents and child.
READ FULL REVIEW
BESTSELLERS: January Catholic Bestsellers
Hardcovers
  1. Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism.
    George Weigel. Doubleday
  2. The Dream Manager
    Matthew Kelly. Beacon Publishing
  3. Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light
    Mother Teresa with Brian Kolodiejchuk. Doubleday
  4. Celebration of Discipline, 25th Anniversary Edition
    Richard Foster. HarperOne
  5. Technology Tools for Your Ministry
    Tim Welch. Twenty-Third Publications
  6. Rediscovering Catholicism
    Matthew Kelly. Beacon Publishing
  7. Jesus of Nazareth
    Pope Benedict XVI. Doubleday
  8. The Rhythm of Life
    Matthew Kelly. Beacon/Fireside
  9. Simply Christian
    N.T. Wright. HarperOne
  10. Catechism of the Catholic Church
    Doubleday/Our Sunday Visitor/USCCB Publishing

Paperbacks

  1. The Screwtape Letters
    C.S. Lewis. Harper San Francisco
  2. Mere Christianity
    C.S. Lewis. Harper San Francisco
  3. Catechism of the Catholic Church
    Doubleday/Our Sunday Visitor/USCCB Publishing
  4. The Great Divorce
    C.S. Lewis. Harper San Francisco
  5. The Cross, Our Only Hope
    A. Gawrych & K. Grove. Ava Maria Press
  6. The Only Necessary Thing
    Henri J.M. Nouwen. Crossroad
  7. The Complete C.S. Lewis Classics
    C.S. Lewis. HarperOne
  8. On Christian Hope
    Pope Benedict XVI. USCCB Publishing
  9. Life of the Beloved
    Henri J.M. Nouwen. Crossroad
  10. The Handbook for Today's Catholic
    A Redemptorist Pastoral Publication. Liguori
© 2008 Catholic Book Publishers Association, Inc.
 
 
 
 
COMING ATTRACTIONS
Look for more news, features and reviews in the February 13 issue of Religion BookLine.
 

PW Religion BookLine from Publishers Weekly
Editors: Lynn Garrett (lgarrett@reedbusiness.com);
Daisy Maryles (dmaryles@reedbusiness.com)
Contributing Editor: Jana Riess

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