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  January 16, 2008
 
• BEHIND THE NEWS
  • Awards Recognize Jewish Children’s Books
• SHORT TAKES
  • Tauber Up at HarperOne; Colson Book Releasing Early; Bad Boy Rabbi Speaks; Pastors Event Going Green
• Q&A
  • Jesus Speaks: Author Frees His Words for a New Look
• RELIGION IN REVIEW
  • Four Reviews Coming in Publishers Weekly on Monday, January 28
  • Four Starred Reviews Coming in PW on Monday, January 28
  • Two Original RBL Reviews
• BESTSELLERS: January PW Religion Bestsellers
• COMING ATTRACTIONS
• HOW TO SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE
BEHIND THE NEWS
Awards Recognize Jewish Children’s Books
by Diane Roback
Sarah Gershman and Kristina Swarner (The Bedtime Sh'ma: A Good Night Book, EKS Publishing), Sid Fleischman (The Entertainer and the Dybbuk, Greenwillow), and Sonia Levitin (Strange Relations, Knopf) have won the 2008 Sydney Taylor Book Award, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. The awards will be presented at the Association of Jewish Libraries convention in Cleveland this June. Additionally, six honor books were selected: The Castle on Hester Street by Linda Heller, illus. by Boris Kulikov (S&S); Letter on the Wind: A Chanukah Tale by Sarah Marwil Lamstein, illus. by Neil Waldman (Boyds Mills); Light by Jane Breskin Zalben (Dutton); Holocaust: The Events and Their Impact on Real People by Angela Gluck Wood (DK); The Secret of Priest's Grotto: A Holocaust Survival Story by Peter Lane Taylor and Christos Nicola (Kar-Ben); and Let Sleeping Dogs Lie by Mirjam Pressler, trans. by Erik J. Macki (Front Street). Further information about the award, as well as a list of 23 notable books for 2008, are available here.
SHORT TAKES
Tauber Up at HarperOne; Colson Book Releasing Early; Bad Boy Rabbi Speaks; Pastors Event Going Green
by Lynn Garrett
Mark Tauber has been promoted to senior v-p, publisher at HarperOne. Before joining the marketing department of Harper San Francisco in 2002 Tauber co-founded Waterfront Media. He also helped found Beliefnet.com—recently sold to News Corp.--and worked for Oxford University Press.

Read the full story...
 
Q&A
Jesus Speaks: Author Frees His Words for a New Look
by Kimberly Winston

In The Words of Jesus: A Gospel of the Sayings of Our Lord (Jossey-Bass, Feb.; reviewed in PW Dec. 3), author Phyllis Tickle strips Jesus of the context and the narrative surrounding his words, leaving only the "red-letter" text of the New Testament. The result, which Tickle calls "a sayings gospel," reveals startling things about this figure many people—including the author—thought they knew.

RBL: What do you gain by separating the words of Jesus from the rest of the Gospels?

Tickle: When you take away the narrative and the contextual pacing, you get power—rata-tat-tat. It is almost like being in front of a machine gun. The more subtle thing is that the reader has always had an intellectual overlay to the Gospels. You say, "I am reading Luke, so I am reading the gentile take on what Jesus said." But when you remove the author and the narrative, you realize the core is exposed much more cleanly.

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RELIGION IN REVIEW
Four Reviews Coming in Publishers WeeklyW on Monday, January 28
Gifts of Passage: What the Dying Tell Us with the Gifts They Leave Behind
Anne Hollingsworth. Thomas Nelson, $19.99 (192p) ISBN 978-0-8499-1920-6
Few events in life leave us more vulnerable and potentially open to God's gifts than the death of a loved one.
READ FULL REVIEW
Conversations with American Writers: The Doubt, the Faith, the In-between
W. Dale Brown. Eerdmans, $18 (318p) ISBN 978-0-8028-6228-0
For more than 20 years, W. Dale Brown has been interviewing authors about "wrestling with the sacred in their writing."
READ FULL REVIEW
Saving the Holy Sepulchre: How Rival Christians Came Together to Rescue Their Holiest Shrine
Raymond Cohen. Oxford, $27.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-19-518966-7
Probably few of the pilgrims and tourists who visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem are aware that for much of the 20th century the building, revered as the location of Christ's crucifixion and burial, was in danger of collapsing
READ FULL REVIEW
Soul Fire: Accessing Your Creativity
Thomas Ryan. SkyLight Paths, $16.99 paper (176p) ISBN 978-1-59473-243-0
Don't let the author's title of reverend scare you away from this soulful cheer for creativity.
READ FULL REVIEW
Four Starred Reviews Coming in PW on Monday, January 28
Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America
Steven Waldman. Random, $25.95 (304p) ISBN 978-1-4000-6437-3
Various American evangelicals have claimed the founding fathers as believing and practicing Protestants who intended America to be a Christian nation. Secularists, on the other hand, see in the same historical record evidence that the founders were often Deists at best. Both views are grossly oversimplified, argues Waldman, cofounder and editor-in-chief of Beliefnet.com. In this engaging, well-researched study, Waldman focuses on the five founding fathers who had the most influence on religion's role in the state—Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Adams and Madison—and untangles their complex legacy. They were certainly diverse in religiosity, with Jefferson a self-diagnosed heretic, for instance, and Washington a churchgoing Anglican who was silent on points of doctrine and refrained from taking communion. All, however, were committed to the creation of religious freedom in the new nation. Waldman deserves kudos for systematically debunking popular myths: America was not primarily settled by people seeking religious freedom; the separation of church and state did not result from the activism of secularists, but, paradoxically, from the efforts of 18th-century evangelicals; and the American Revolution was as much a reaction against European theocracy as a struggle for economic or political freedom. Waldman produces a thoughtful and remarkably balanced account of religion in early America. (Mar. 18)
Jesus for President
Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw. Zondervan, $16.99 paper (304p) ISBN 978-0-310-27842-9
Here is the must-read election-year book for Christian Americans. What should Christians do when allegiances to the state clash with personal faith? Haw and Claiborne (The Irresistible Revolution) slice through politics as usual and well past the superficial layers of the culture wars with their lucid exploration of how Christians can and should relate to presidents and kings, empire and government. Their entertaining yet provocative tour of the Bible's social and economic order makes even the most abstruse Levitical laws come alive for our era. They also provide a valuable political context for Christ's life, reminding readers that Jesus did not preach the need to put God back into government—he urged his followers to live by a different set of rules altogether, to hold themselves apart as peculiar people. The compelling writing is enhanced by a lavish, eye-popping layout. The pages are a riot of textured callouts, colors, photos and fonts—the perfect packaging for a message that must compete in a world of sound bites. With this second book, Claiborne emerges as an affable, intelligent, humorous prophet of his generation, calling people out of business-as-usual in a corrupt world and back to the radically different social order of the biblical God. (Mar.)
Freedom's Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church, and the Black Founding Fathers
Richard S. Newman. NYU, $34.95 (342p) ISBN 978-0-8147-5826-7
In this elegant and insightful biography, historian Newman (The Transformation of American Abolitionism) offers a vivid portrait of Bishop Richard Allen (1760–1831), a tireless preacher committed to ending slavery and fostering equality for blacks in post-revolutionary America. Born a slave in Philadelphia, Allen converted to Methodism when he was 17 during a revival held at his master's house. After obtaining his freedom, Allen helped to establish two of the most important black-led organizations in early America: the Free African Society, a benevolent organization, and Bethel Church, the birthplace of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, one of the most powerful African-American denominations in the United States. Although Allen is best remembered for his religious leadership, his work moved far beyond these circles. According to Newman, his ability to create independent black organizations as well as initiate a published discourse among free blacks established him as one of the nation's founding leaders. Newman's beautifully written study is not only a first-rate social history of the early Republic and African-American culture and religion, it also provides a detailed sketch of Allen that is sure to become the definitive biography of the leader. (Mar.)
Bead One, Pray Too: A Guide to Making and Using Prayer Beads
Kimberly Winston. Morehouse, $28 (192p) ISBN 978-0-8192-2276-3
Part history, part missal and part crafting how-to, this is a treasure trove of faith and spiritual contemplation. Winston, an award-winning religion journalist, occasional PW contributor and avid beader, takes readers on a fascinating journey through the tradition of prayer beads. From the third century B.C. through the late 20th century, she touches on a variety of world religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, the Baha'i faith and others. A thorough introduction to both the Catholic and Anglican rosaries, complete with stunning photographs and instructional diagrams, rounds out the historical portion of the text. The second part, which is even more inviting, reveals myriad ways to use the tactile to reach the spiritual. From poems to psalms to saints, Winston offers bead-by-bead suggestions, all the time emphasizing that "prayer beads are a tool for prayer and not an object of devotion... they are not there to be the focus of your prayers, but to help you focus your prayers." Practically, the final section provides the nitty-gritty of tools, materials and techniques necessary for creating individual rosaries and chains, complete with resources for choosing and finding particular types of beads. The combination of Winston's personal anecdotes with her obvious knowledge of and love for the practice makes this a lovely addition to any praying person's repertoire. (Mar.)
Two Original RBL Reviews
Happier than God: Turn Ordinary Life into an Extraordinary Experience
Neale Donald Walsch. Hampton Roads, $22.95 (292p) ISBN 978-1-57174-576-7
A self-described "modern day spiritual messenger," Walsch is known for his Conversations with God books, national bestsellers translated into more than 30 languages. This new offering recaps some of that content, but chiefly expounds upon the "law of attraction" school of thought, brought to market most notably by Rhonda Byrne's The Secret. Walsch carves big real estate, asserting that "this book offers a complete explanation of How Life Works." At once altruistic and self-serving, his framework is a multi-step "Process of Personal Creation": he claims to augment the energy of attraction with the law of opposites, the gift of wisdom, the joy of wonder and the presence of cycles. What Walsch asserts to be a revelation—that the Divine exists in all, thus all is a manifestation of the Divine—is really an age-old tenet of Hinduism. His well-intentioned content, though hard for many mainline believers to swallow, is nonetheless flavored with Christian sensibilities, e.g.," The kingdom of God is within you." No doubt, however, his arguments will find great success with the Conversation and Secret crowds who can find sustenance here in short chapters and 17 steps to happiness, including the notion that readers should give others every experience they seek themselves; understand sadness; and smile. (Feb.)
Spiritual Delights and Delusions: How to Bridge the Gap between Spiritual Fulfillment and Emotional Realities
Steve Posner. Wiley, $24.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-471-69825-8
Posner has a great intention: reconcile the loftiness of enlightenment with the day-to-day realities of minor pettiness and major suffering. The same question has prompted, and anguished, spiritual seekers at least as far back as Job, and produced countless books on the subjects of good and evil, of active spiritual response to life's challenges. Unfortunately the author, who cites many spiritual teachers, is better at questions than answers, in both the figurative and literal sense. The rhetorical question is so frequent a device of his ("Isn't all of reality worth grasping? Is our consciousness so fragile that it can't withstand the whole truth of human existence?", two of 36 such questions in a single chapter) that it becomes annoying. A fair portion dwells on the need to respond to terrorism—frequently characterized as Islamic—a good question that isn't answered by much reflection beyond personal anecdotes about travel in Israel and China. Experience is authentic, but also limited. A macho spirituality ("This is not misguided patriotism or crude flag-waving fanaticism. It is a realistic spirituality...") may have its fans, but many better books on this perennial subject are available (After the Ecstasy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield; anything by Thich Nhat Hanh). (Mar.)
BESTSELLER BYTES
Chart Topper Commentary
by Daisy Maryles
Quiet Strength, the inspirational memoir by Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy, reached a major milestone: it now has more than one million copies in print. The book pubbed in July with a first printing of 170,000 and has been back to press 18 times. Dungy says he's "overwhelmed with the response to his book," noting that it is "beyond what I ever imagined. I thank God for the platform He has given me and I'm very grateful to Nathan Whitaker and to Tyndale for their help in telling this story." Evangelical Christian publisher Tyndale has another football-related hit: Don't Bet Against Me! by Deanna Favre, wife of the Green Bay Packers' Brett Favre. Her book is now in its eighth printing, with more than 200,000 copies in print.

Read the full story...
PW RELIGION BESTSELLERS: January
Hardcover
  1. Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices, & Priorities of a Winning Life
    Tony Dungy with Nathan Whitaker. Tyndale, $26.99
    ISBN 978-0-4143-1801-1
  2. Become a Better You
    Joel Osteen. Free Press, $25
    ISBN 978-0-7432-9688-5
  3. 3:16: The Numbers of Hope
    Max Lucado. Thomas Nelson, $24.99
    ISBN 978-0-8499-0193-5
  4. Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light
    Mother Teresa and Brian Kolodiejchuk. Doubleday, $22.95
    ISBN 978-0-385-52037-9
  5. Reposition Yourself
    T.D. Jakes. Atria, $24
    ISBN 978-0-416-54431-9
  6. Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy
    Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt & David L. Weaver-Zercher. Jossey-Bass, $24.95
    ISBN 978-0-7879-9761-8
  7. Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires, the Respect He Desperately Needs.
    Emerson Eggerichs. Thomas Nelson, $21.99
    ISBN 978-1-5914-5187-7
  8. Between Sundays
    Karen Kingsbury. Zondervan, $21.99
    ISBN 978-0-3102-5772-1
  9. God Is Not Great
    Christopher Hitchens. Twelve, $24.99
    ISBN 978-0-446-57980-3
  10. A Treasury of Christmas Miracles.
    Karen Kingsbury. FaithWords, $13.99
    ISBN 978-0-446-19392-4

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. Your Best Life Now
    Joel Osteen. FaithWords, $13.99
    ISBN 978-0-446-69615-9
  3. Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul
    John and Stasi Eldredge. Thomas Nelson, $14.99
    ISBN 978-0-7852-8909-8
  4. The Five Love Languages
    Gary Chapman. Moody/Northfield, $12.99
    ISBN 1-881273-15-6
  5. Mere Christianity
    C.S. Lewis.. HarperOne, $11.95
    ISBN 978-0-06-065292-0
  6. The Purpose-Driven Life
    Rick Warren.Zondervan, $14.99
    ISBN 978-0-310-27699-9
  7. The Portable Atheist
    Selected and with introduction by Christopher Hitchens. Da Capo Press, $17.50
    ISBN 978-0-3068-1608-6
  8. Christmas Jars
    Jason F. Wright. Shadow Mountain, $14.95
    ISBN 978-1-5903-8699-6
  9. Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul.
    John Eldredge. Thomas Nelson, $14.99
    ISBN 978-0-7852-6370-8
  10. On Her Own
    Wanda E. Brunstetter. Barbour, $19.99
    ISBN 978-1-5978-9610-8
 
 
COMING ATTRACTIONS
In the next issue of Religion BookLine (Jan. 30), look for a profile of Jamie S. Korngold, author of God in the Wilderness: Rediscovering the Spirituality of the Great Outdoors with the Adventure Rabbi.
 

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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