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  April 23, 2008
 
• BEHIND THE NEWS
  • Layoffs Hit Thomas Nelson
  • Chabon and Martel Headline Calvin Festival
• SHORT TAKES
  • Self-Pubbed Catholic Memoir Picked Up by Pocket; Price Promoted at Orbis
• AUTHOR PROFILE
  • Bringing Pagans in the Military Out of the Broom Closet
• RELIGION IN REVIEW
  • Four Reviews Coming in Publishers Weekly on Monday, May 12
  • Three Original RBL Reviews
  • A Starred Review Coming in PW on May 12
• BESTSELLER BYTES
• PW RELIGION BESTSELLERS: April 1
• COMING ATTRACTIONS
• HOW TO SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE
BEHIND THE NEWS
Layoffs Hit Thomas Nelson
by Lynn Garrett
A round of layoffs hit Thomas Nelson staffers Tuesday. Lindsey Nobles, director of corporate communications, confirmed that there had been "a modest reduction in our workforce," though she would not release a number, calling it "a small percentage of our workforce—a single digit percentage." The last "significant" reduction was in 2001, when as CEO Michael Hyatt recalled "it was about 65 people. This is less than that. At that time it was economically driven, while this is strategy-driven."

Hyatt explained that the layoffs were a result of Nelson’s recently announced plans to reduce title output by 50% in order to focus its resources on fewer, better-selling books. "When you do that, it doesn’t require the same infrastructure," he said. "Each title, whether big or small, requires about the same level of effort." Asked whether employees may have had some inkling that staffing cuts would follow that move, Hyatt said, "They certainly know that the marketplace is changing, and fairly dramatically, and that really requires us to think outside of business as usual. I don’t think most people were surprised by it."

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Chabon and Martel Headline Calvin Festival
by Jana Riess
More than 2,000 people enjoyed a stellar lineup of writers, poets, publishers and other literary types at Calvin College's biennial Festival of Faith & Writing, held this past weekend (April 17-19) in Grand Rapids, Mich. Festival director Shelly LeMahieu Dunn said that registration maxed out by mid-March, well before the April 1 deadline. 

One big draw was the high-profile authors at the event, including plenary speakers Michael Chabon (The Yiddish Policemen's Union), Yann Martel (Life of Pi), Kathleen Norris (Dakota) and Katherine Paterson (Bridge to Terabithia). Some authors also did daytime Q&As, giving audience members behind-the-scenes insights into their lives. Chabon talked about his reaction to learning he had won the Pulitzer Prize (he claims he was calm, but his eight-months-pregnant wife screamed like a madwoman). In concurrent sessions, authors like Haven Kimmel, Phyllis Tickle, Elizabeth Berg, Brian Doyle, Krista Tippett and Mary Karr reflected on the intersection of spirituality and the writer's craft.

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SHORT TAKES
Self-Pubbed Catholic Memoir Picked Up by Pocket; Price Promoted at Orbis
by Lynn Garrett
Pocket Books has acquired the rights to publish the paperback edition of Parish the Thought: An Inspirational Memoir of Growing Up Catholic in the 1960s by John Ruane. Originally self-published in June 2007 under Ruane's own Roswell Press imprint, Parish the Thought has nearly sold out its 5,000-copy hardcover print run and garnered endorsements and reviews from such Catholic luminaries as Pope Benedict XVI, Atlanta's Archbishop Wilton Gregory and Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago. The pub date for the Pocket edition is Oct. 7.

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AUTHOR PROFILE
Bringing Pagans in the Military Out of the Broom Closet
by Marcia Z. Nelson

Rob Barner may not be home for family dinner, but after his two tours of military duty in Iraq, Stefani Barner is just happy that her husband is in the same hemisphere. Military wife Barner uses her faith to cope with the demands of the lifestyle, and has written a one-of-a-kind book about her spiritual support: Faith and Magick in the Armed Forces: A Handbook for Pagans in the Military (Llewellyn, May). Paganism is not exactly a well-understood religion, so Barner's book is intended as a resource for military families to help them stay safe and sane and to know their rights and limitations within the service.

Barner describes herself as a Unitarian-Universalist pagan. "Some of our pagan friends laugh at that," she said of her self-description. But pagans follow different spiritual traditions, much as Christianity is divided into denominations. Barner is also the grandchild of Pentecostal Christian ministers, and her husband has a background as a Catholic charismatic. The Christian theology they learned didn't make sense to them, but the expressive worship style they had learned in Christianity fit well in pagan practice. "We both kind of separately found that the pagan tradition made sense to us," Barner told RBL from her Michigan home.

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RELIGION IN REVIEW
Four Reviews Coming in Publishers Weekly on Monday, May 12
A Persistent Peace: One Man's Struggle for a Nonviolent World
John Dear, S.J. Loyola, $22.95 (400p) ISBN 978-0-8294-2720-2
One of 197 nominees for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, Dear recounts his nearly 30 years of waging peace through speaking, networking, writing (25 books so far), and spearheading nonviolent demonstrations.
READ FULL REVIEW
Lucifer's Court: A Heretic's Journey in Search of the Light Bringers
Otto Rahn. Inner Traditions, $19.95 paper (384p) ISBN 978-1-59477-232-0
Some have described Rahn as the inspiration for the Indiana Jones movies. Indeed, after the publication of his first book, Crusade Against the Grail, Rahn's quest for the relic came to be sponsored by the Nazis' SS.
READ FULL REVIEW
Light Comes Through: Buddhist Teachings on Awakening Our Natural Intelligence
Dzigar Kongtrül. Foreword by the Dalai Lama. Shambhala, $21.95 (144p) ISBN 978-1-59030-567-6
Friend and teacher of the high-profile author Pema Chödrön, Tibetan Buddhist lama Kongtrül grew up in a monastic environment and received broad training in Buddhist doctrine.
READ FULL REVIEW
A Mended and Broken Heart: The Life and Love of St. Francis of Assisi
Wendy Murray. Basic Books, $25.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-465-00208-5
Murray (The Beliefnet Guide to Evangelical Christianity) lowered herself into ancient ruins, chatted with nuns behind iron grilles and pored over documents in four languages to research and write this story of Francis of Assisi, the medieval saint whose appeal is timeless.
READ FULL REVIEW
Three Original RBL Reviews
Turtle Feet: The Making and Unmaking of a Buddhist Monk
Nikolai Grozni. Riverhead, $24.95 (336p) ISBN 978-1-59448-984-6
This book about Tibetan monkhood certainly fits the description of the "extreme" memoir. Written by a Bulgarian novelist who was educated in the United States (Brown University) and India (down the street from the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala), this book takes a long time to get good, but it does get there. The most fascinating character is not the narrator, an archetypal youthful apprentice figure. That honor is reserved for a fallen, stateless monk from Bosnia who is a Zorba figure, enticing the narrator not to lusty appreciation of the world's wonders but to what Buddhists call seeing things as they are—enlightenment that is ultimately no big deal. There are passages of beauty about the nature of the mind and existence that few books about Buddhism can rival, because few books about Buddhism are written by authors with creative training. But a good editor should have reined in the author's disproportionate focus on the main character's excesses; it would have helped pacing and made a shorter and more convincing read. (May)
The Springfield Reformation: The Simpsons, Christianity, and American Culture
Jamey Heit. Continuum, $15.95 paper (208p) ISBN 978-0-826-42896-7
Has any television show had a greater impact on American culture over the past two decades than The Simpsons? Heit, a doctoral student of religion and literature, deftly demonstrates how the program has transcended being solely a cartoon show to becoming one of the more incisive sources of commentary on culture in the United States. A substantial part of that culture is focused on religion, and The Simpsons allows Americans to view their wide array of attitudes about religion in a humorous light. The author comments on the show's occasional negative critiques of the overwhelmingly Christian conservative religious culture in America, but his tone is always balanced. He describes how The Simpsons tackles thorny issues like religion and science and the interpretation of Scripture with humor—an ingredient often left out of these public debates. One of the key themes of the book is how the program helps viewers navigate the realities of organized religion in a post-modern world that often sloughs it off as silly superstition. Like Mark Pinsky in The Gospel According to the Simpsons, Heit offers a fun and insightful ride through one of the more enduing phenomena in American culture. (May)
The Forbidden: The Courtship of Nellie Fisher #2
Beverly Lewis, Bethany House, $13.99 paper (352p) 978-0-7642-0311-4
Book two of Lewis's series is exactly the kind of predictable Amish novel her readers have come to expect: multiple character plot lines, romantic entanglements, tension within the religious community, and at least one tragedy. Here, Lewis continues the saga of Nellie Mae Fisher, whose Amish family embraces a "New Order" personal faith that defies the "Old Order" beliefs they've always held dear. Nellie hopes to marry Caleb Yoder, but because of her family's change of belief, Caleb's father forbids him to marry Nellie on pain of losing his inheritance. Lewis capably portrays the struggle Nellie feels between the attraction of her family's faith and the yearnings of her heart. Other plot threads continue: Nellie's sister Rhoda is drawn into the modern world and its promise of convenience, excitement and automobiles, while a couple who have been given a set of twins to raise discover that their burgeoning interest in the New Order faith causes the birth mother to have second thoughts about their fitness as adoptive parents. Lewis's readers seemingly can't get enough of her tales about Amish life, and this latest installment won't disappoint. (May)
A Starred Review Coming in PW on Monday, May 12
Beyond Tolerance: Searching for Interfaith Understanding in America
Gustav Niebuhr. Viking, $25.95 (208p) ISBN 978-0-670-01956-4
Niebuhr, the former religion reporter for the New York Times, is now a professor at Syracuse University. This dual professional experience makes his book immensely valuable: he has the careful scholarship of an academic, but the communication expertise of a journalist skilled at getting to the personal heart of a story. Not long after 9/11, Niebuhr set out to find and tell the largely untold stories of those who are involved in interreligious dialogue: why do they do it? What do they gain from it? What do they risk? True dialogue, as the title claims, means moving "beyond tolerance," approaching other religious traditions with a desire to learn and, perhaps more important, to make friends. Niebuhr tells memorable stories of people reaching across religious lines, from a group of Cape Cod Congregationalists who gave a Jewish community a historic building, some land and some money to create a synagogue to the energetic individuals who founded Louisville's famous Festival of Faiths. Niebuhr beautifully honors the commitment and care shown by those working on the front lines of interreligious understanding. (Aug. 4)
BESTSELLER BYTES
Chart Topper Commentary
by Daisy Maryles
The Wall Street Journal dubbed Tudor Parfitt, author of The Lost Ark of the Covenant, the "British Indiana Jones," and he's also an Oxford Fellow and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Harvard. His book, the culmination of two decades of research, chronicles his quest to recover the object that is sacred to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The History Channel aired a documentary, Quest for the Lost Ark, based on the book. Parfitt appeared on The Today Show and has done numerous interviews, including one for Time.com. HarperOne reports 30,000 copies in print.

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PW RELIGION BESTSELLERS: April
Hardcover
  1. Become a Better You
    Joel Osteen. Free Press, $25
    ISBN 978-0-7432-9688-5
  2. The Third Jesus
    Deepak Chopra. Harmony, $24
    ISBN 978-0-307-33831-0
  3. What the Gospels Meant
    Garry Wills. Viking, $24.95
    ISBN 978-0-670-01871-0
  4. God's Problem
    Bart D. Ehrman.. HarperOne, $25.95
    ISBN 978-0-06-117397-4
  5. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
    Timothy Keller. Dutton, $24.95
    ISBN 978-0-525-95049-3
  6. Fasting
    Jentezen Franklin. Charisma House, $15.99
    ISBN 978-1-5997-9258-3
  7. 3:16: The Numbers of Hope
    Max Lucado. Thomas Nelson, $24.99
    ISBN 978-0-8499-0193-5
  8. One Month to Live: Thirty Days to a No-Regrets Life
    Kerry Shook and Chris Shook. WaterBrook, $19.99
    ISBN 978-1-4000-7379-5
  9. Intelligence for Your Life: Powerful Lessons for Personal Growth.
    John Tesh . Thomas Nelson, $19.99
    ISBN 978-0-8499-2043-1
  10. The Lost Ark of the Covenant
    Tudor Parfitt. HarperOne, $25.95
    ISBN 978-0-06-137103-5

Paperback

  1. 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
  2. The Shack.
    William P. Young. Windblown Media, $14.99
    ISBN 978-0-964729230
  3. The God Delusion
    Richard Dawkins. . Mariner Books, $15.95
    ISBN 978-0-618-91824-9
  4. The Five Love Languages
    Gary Chapman. Moody/Northfield, $12.99
    ISBN 1-881273-15-6
  5. Someday (Sunrise Series, Baxter 3).
    Karen Kingsbury. Tyndale, $13.99
    ISBN 978-0-8423-8749-1
  6. The Purpose-Driven Life
    Rick Warren. Zondervan, $14.99
    ISBN 978-0-310-27699-9
  7. Battlefield of the Mind.
    Joyce Meyer. FaithWords, $14.99
    ISBN 978-0-446-69109-3
  8. Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith.
    Anne Lamott. Riverhead, $14
    ISBN 978-1-594-48287-8
  9. Mere Christianity
    C.S. Lewis.. HarperOne, $11.95
    ISBN 978-0-06-065292-0
  10. Your Best Life Now
    Joel Osteen. FaithWords, $13.99
    ISBN 978-0-446-69615-9
 
 
 
COMING ATTRACTIONS
Look for the next issue of Religion BookLine on May 7, when we’ll have a Q&A with Kenneth Miller, author of Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution (Harper Perennial).
 

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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