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Spirituality and Religion September 2026 |
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| All That's Unseen: An Appalachian Memoir by Emilee HackneyAfter a devastating betrayal that called her Pentecostal faith into question, debut memoirist Emilee Hackney left her small Appalachian town in Virginia for Harvard. Amidst the culture shock, Hackney realized that leaving home was the right move for her. But it also made her see that home in a new light, and she found herself defending the land of her birth against those quick to dismiss and stereotype the South and its people. |
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Braving the Truth: Essential Essays for Reckoning with and Reimagining Faith
by Rachel Held Evans
This book offers a collection of her most impactful essays--in print for the first time. For a generation finding their footing in life after evangelicalism, Rachel Held Evans was one of the most trusted and beloved voices of our time. Stubborn in her hope, courageous in her questions, and devoted to inclusivity, her online writing was a sanctuary to the millions who read her words daily. Her death to a sudden illness in 2019 invoked a global outpouring of stories of her legacy and influence. Today, her words still speak, and now for the first time, fans old and new can experience her most viral and enduring essays in print--from those tackling patriarchy, white supremacy, and religious nationalism to those offering new interpretations of Scripture, freeing perspectives on doubt, and a better way forward.
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| The Cure at Walden Pond: A Guide to Recovering Our Humanity by Thomas MooreWhat might Thoreau have to teach us about living well today? Drawing on Walden and his own experiences as a psychotherapist and spiritual guide, Thomas Moore reflects on how slowing down, paying attention, and spending time in nature can help restore a sense of meaning in a distracted world. His observations are both familiar and uniquely tuned to the contemporary world we are all navigating. |
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A God-Shaped Nation: Five Hundred Years of Religion in America
by Brook Wilensky-Lanford
A kaleidoscopic American history of extraordinary religious transformations, told through the ordinary people who made them happen Ever since conquistadores claimed Taino land in the name of their Catholic God and New England Puritans formed their strictly Protestant city on a hill, religion has been central to American life. Even as some found religious freedom--Rhode Island welcomed the Quakers, Jews, and Baptists that Massachusetts expelled as dissenters--indigenous people and Africans forced into slavery struggled to protect their religious practices. With the constitutional separation of church and state, it fell to the American people to decide: would they sharpen religion's formidable powers of division, or reimagine its creative possibilities.
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| How Western Christianity Got It Wrong: Replacing the God of Fear with a Spirituality... by Randy WoodleyRandy Woodley -- of white and Cherokee descent -- draws on scripture, history, and Indigenous wisdom to bring us this thought-provoking examination of how Western Christianity became entangled with harmful systems of power and domination. He argues that recovering a more relational, community-centered faith can help restore the values of love and stewardship at the heart of Jesus's teachings. |
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I Belong to Me: A Survivor's Guide to Recovery and Hope After Religious Trauma
by Tia Levings
What does it mean to heal from trauma caused by the people, beliefs, and practices of your faith? And to rebuild a sense of self, when high-control religion said you shouldn't have one?Indoctrinated from early childhood to obey, conform, and want what others wanted for her, Tia Levings learned love and acceptance meant being someone other than herself. After years of abuse in a violent marriage and high-control religion, Tia Levings escaped with her children (a story told in her memoir, A Well-Trained Wife) and thought the hardest was behind her. But leaving was just the beginning. With an audacious persistence to reclaim her life, Tia set off on a 15-year quest to psychological peace. The result is an emotionally regulated, actualized, self-aware woman who is able to tell her harrowing story without retraumatizing herself --a woman who can reach back to help others claim what's theirs.
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| Of Mud and Lotuses: Dreaming the Lives of Buddhist Women by Paula Arai, PhDWhat can we learn from the Buddhist women whose stories were never recorded? Paula Arai offers both a mystical and grounded approach to this question, combining richly imagined portraits of Buddhist women from history (some real figures, some representative of a concept) with contemporary interviews of Buddhist female practitioners. Together, these voices offer fresh perspectives on the roles of women across centuries of Buddhist practice.
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Reality in Ruins: How Conspiracy Theory Became an American Evangelical Crisis
by PhD Stacy, Jared
For anyone who has ever said, It feels like we're living in different realities, an unforgettable read and definitive explainer of the strange history of evangelical conspiracy theory.Conspiracy theories are at the root of the most pressing political problems of our time, yet their influence cuts just as personal. Suspicion has fractured families, communities, churches, and our very social fabric, as one person's fact is another's fake news.In Reality in Ruins, Dr. Jared Stacy braves the untold history of conspiracism in American evangelicalism and the anxiety at the heart of this radioactive movement that affects us all. In a new age of what he calls Disreality, many are left reeling in the ruins of what was once a common world, now splintered by warring ideologies, religious and political extremism, and cults of certainty.
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| Scavenging Beauty: A Memoir in Walks by Angelica GlassWhen a project to walk every street in Santa Cruz, California turns into something much larger, social worker Angelica Glass finds herself revisiting a difficult childhood and reckoning with its lasting impact. Blending nature writing, memoir, and quiet reflection, she explores how movement, curiosity, and attention can open unexpected paths toward healing things you might not have fully realized were broken. |
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| This Is the Main Event: Discovering the Life You Long for in the Life You Have by Joshua Luke SmithPoet Joshua Luke Smith writes about learning to stop chasing a different life and begin paying attention to the one already in front of him. Using three spiritual practices which he names as Lamentation, Consecration, and Adoration, he weaves together reflections on loss, addiction, faith, and family, exploring how sorrow and joy can deepen our experience of the sacred.
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Contact the Reference Dep. at 847-720-3230 for more great books! |
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