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Beyond Wellness: How Restoring the Religious Roots of Spiritual Practices Can Heal Us
by Liz Bucar
Go deeper than superficial self-care with the religious secret sauce you didn't know you were missing An emotionally and intellectually honest alternative for people who are seeking meaning beyond generic spirituality--Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, author of Real Self-Care In the chaos of today's world, we're all searching for meaning. The wellness industry has sold us a promise that we can find it if we just buy the right products, attend the right retreats, and follow the right celebrity gurus. But is this true? Or are we picking and choosing from a self-care salad bar in ways that satisfy our hunger but don't truly nourish us? When we approach practices like yoga and ayahuasca as fitness routines and life hacks, we miss out on the sacred wisdom they have to offer us. But by digging into the real and often ancient religious traditions behind these practices, from Buddhism to Christianity and beyond, we can make them more meaningful, ethical, and effective--without the often unpleasant baggage of joining an organized religion. In this engaging and deeply personal book, award-winning scholar and writer Liz Bucar embarks on a quest to get to the heart of spiritual but not religious activities from detox diets to sound baths. As she tries out each practice for herself, she asks how we can get more out of it by tuning out the hype and taking the religious meaning behind it seriously--with emotionally profound and often surprising results. Whether it's as simple as setting an intention for a yoga asana or as complex as reevaluating what a higher power is, it's time to understand, experience, and simply get more out of our spiritual practices. It's time to dig deeper with Beyond Wellness.
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True Crime: A Memoir
by Patricia Cornwell
#1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell finally tells the story that rivals all of the works that precede it: her own. Let's start, and end, with this: Patricia Cornwell's autobiography, TRUE CRIME, could be the best book she's ever written. And I've read them all --James Patterson Patricia Cornwell is best known for her international bestselling thriller series about forensic pathologist Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Every story comes from somewhere, and Scarpetta's began when Patricia Cornwell embedded herself in a morgue. In this achingly honest memoir, Cornwell excavates her own life, detailing her traumatic childhood being raised by neglectful parents, her father abandoning the young family on Christmas day, her mother being institutionalized twice, an abusive foster family, and developing a parental relationship with evangelist Billy Graham's wife Ruth. Cornwell depicts a harrowing hospitalization and near-death car accident. She unflinchingly shares overcoming obstacles that later gave her the ambition to become an award-winning police reporter. From there it was research in a medical examiner's office that would turn into a full-time job. She would become a forensic expert and worldwide publishing phenomenon. Cornwell leaves no stone unturned in this deeply candid account of her life, offering inspiring insight into what made her into the international sensation she is today.
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Backtalker: An American Memoir
by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw
New York Times Bestseller One of the most influential public intellectuals in the world and the architect of the two biggest ideas to reshape the American conversation about fairness offers the intimate story of how her life gave birth to these ideas. It is not very often that someone comes along and permanently reshapes the way Americans think about two of the most important issues of the day. In this case: race and gender. But that is what Kimberl Crenshaw did when she articulated two concepts that would forever change national and global debates about equality: intersectionality and critical race theory. Backtalker is the powerful and intimate story of how a little girl from Canton, Ohio, came up with a new way to look at the world. Crenshaw's memoir traces the way her lived experience made her see things others didn't as the daughter of a strong-minded teacher and a pathbreaking public servant, and as the sister of a protective, yet bullying older brother. She starts to talk back, and that backtalking has continued throughout her life. It happens when she is denied a role in the kindergarten school play. When she is escorted to the back door of a private club. When Anita Hill is exiled for testifying against Clarence Thomas. When OJ Simpson goes on trial. When Obama launches My Brother's Keeper, a movement focused on boys of color only. When the movement against police violence overlooks Black women. Crenshaw is there for all of it. In the vein of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Bryan Stevenson, Crenshaw evokes each time and place like a gifted novelist with extreme honesty and specificity, making her book a series of awe-inspiring, deep revelations. As a result of her work, Crenshaw has become a force to be reckoned with across America--at schools, in the workplace, at dinner tables, and, of course, in our public square.
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The Last of the Old Breed: An Oral History of the Final Marines from World War II
by Scott Davis
An oral history of the brutal Pacific Theater in WWII, told by many of the last living U.S. Marine veterans.During World War II, over 16 million Americans served in the Armed Forces. Today, less than 1 percent are still alive. The Last of the Old Breed is an unprecedented oral history of the final living United States Marines from World War II, featuring over 130 veterans, ranging in age from 90 to 103. Told in harrowing detail, the witnesses reveal the brutal reality of combat against a fanatical enemy and the heavy toll it took on their post-war lives. From retirement facilities, veteran's hospitals, and modest homes across the country, the last witnesses opened up about the war like never before, determined to leave an honest account for future generations. For many of the veterans, this was the first - and final - time telling their stories. The Last of the Old Breed is a rare, unvarnished look at the Pacific War, in the words of those who were there. These are the stories that could not be told - until now.
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Love Thy Stranger: How the Teachings of Jesus Transformed the Moral Conscience of the West
by Bart D. Ehrman
From the New York Times bestselling author of Misquoting Jesus comes a surprising history of Jesus's most radical commandment, tracing how this extraordinary duty to love even those who are strangers to us has shaped our world and our lives. From the earliest of times up through Greek and Roman antiquity, moral thinkers prioritized generosity toward friends and family. Even Old Testament exhortations to love your neighbor said little about the suffering of those beyond your own community. Jesus changed all this, introducing a revolutionary new ethical obligation to show love to those you don't know, and might even dislike, through acts of care. The implications of this radical commandment would be debated, misunderstood, and resisted by early Christians. But by the fifth century, this new common sense began to transform the moral conscience--and the politics--of the West. In Love Thy Stranger, New Testament historian Bart D. Ehrman charts the causes and consequences of this ethical revolution up to the present day with his signature sly humor and verve. For in this moment of renewed debate over the limits of the love we owe to others, Jesus's most demanding commandment remains quite provocative, even two millennia on.
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America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries
by Eddie S. Glaude
The New York Times bestselling author of Begin Again confronts America's unfinished story in this blistering reassessment of race, freedom, and the myths that bind us. A thoughtful, insightful, beautifully written book that is timely and welcomed in these perilous times.--Bryan Stevenson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Just Mercy Eddie S. Glaude Jr. opens a necessary conversation as we reflect on the meaning of our country's 250th anniversary.--Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello Celebrated public intellectual Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. presents a groundbreaking analysis of the vicious cycles of American history and the country's enduring refusal to face its true nature--especially at the moments when national anniversaries steer us back toward the mythology meant to disguise the truth. America, U.S.A., deliberately formulated and beautifully written, details a heart-wrenching exploration of America's legacy. It is a magnificently complex combination of lessons and voices--from W.E.B. DuBois and John Dos Passos to Herman Melville and Martin Luther King, Jr.--that, together, paint a sprawling and honest tableau of the United States, its complicated past, and ever more tenuous future. Glaude's is a powerful voice of conscience in our tumultuous world. He pulls no punches, calling on us to interrogate our conceptions of innocence and freedom and the stories we tell ourselves about our past and present. Centered around the major celebrations of America's milestone birthdays across 250 years of history, the book offers a riveting look at the battles over who has a stake in writing the American story. Devastatingly candid, profoundly moving, and deeply reflective, America, U.S.A. is a shining meditation on how we must reckon with a grim past in order to strive for the better angels of our future.
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Monster of a Land: On the Road in Search of Modern America
by Lauren Hough
From The New York Times bestselling author of Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing comes an update of John Steinbeck's trip in Travels with Charley, a cross-country journey exploring modern America with Lauren Hough's signature observational wit, searing social commentary, and perspective as someone who knows what it's like to truly exist on the margins in this country. Monster of a Land is so much more than a road trip book--it's about the trips we never take, the people we lose before we get the chance, and what happens when you finally get in the goddamn car. --Jennette McCurdy, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Half His Age and I'm Glad My Mom Died Lauren Hough has always been haunted by the road trips she never got to take: no money, no vacation days, no car capable of making the trip. So, upon finally finding herself in a situation where such a trip might be possible--being a writer may not always pay better than being a bartender or a cable guy, but at least the schedule's flexible--she leaps at the chance, refurbishing a ramshackle 2001 Dodge van and setting off from Austin, Texas with her Husky mix Woody by her side. Her influences feel obvious--but a lot has changed about the United States since the 1962 trip John Steinbeck chronicles in Travels with Charley. And Lauren Hough isn't John Steinbeck--unless the Noble Prize-winning author of The Grapes of Wrath had a secret past as a six-foot-tall lesbian and Air Force vet. But even better as a social lubricant than beer, a dog is the ultimate conversation starter. With Woody as wingman, Lauren chats--at gas stations and restaurants and auto shops and bars--with an incredible cross-section of Americans from all walks of life and every possible political perspective. And as she circumnavigates the country, she documents, with all-too-rare empathy, what it means to be poor, to be marginalized, and to be seen as Other in America. Part travelogue, part social commentary, and 100% Lauren Hough, Monster of a Land unites her poignant vulnerability, her hilarious narrative voice, and her razor-sharp insights into a journey that will show us how far we've come as a country, and how far we still have to go.
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The Sane One: A Memoir by the Co-Creator of Pen15
by Anna Konkle
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - In a coming-of-age memoir that's equal parts hysterical and moving (Marie Claire), the co-creator of Hulu's brilliant Pen15 grapples with the reappearance of her estranged father--and whether it's possible to reconnect before it's too late. Anna Konkle is generous enough to bring her comic sensibilities to a story that could have well have been a tragedy. She speaks for all the 'sane ones' out there who never agreed to play that part.--Amy Sedaris Throughout Anna Konkle's childhood, her father was her hero--a hyper-charismatic, larger-than-life human resource manager at 7-Eleven. But their closeness was constantly interrupted by the screaming matches and heavy silences between him and her mother, eventually culminating in a bitter divorce that literally split the family house down the middle, with one parent on each side. College felt like freedom, and Anna filled her time searching for the husband she'd never divorce and the orgasm she'd never had, while waiting tables at fancy restaurants and getting lackluster acting gigs, the strangest of which had her working celebrity Halloween parties. But just as she begins to thrive, her father starts to struggle. Not long after she moves to LA to pursue acting and writing, her dad's increasingly erratic behavior forces her to cut off contact with him, until, years later, he knocks at her door. Written in intimately beautiful prose, The Sane One is a tragicomic memoir of growing up, falling apart, getting older, and trying to come back together while there's still time.
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We Mend with Gold: An Immigrant Daughter's Reckoning with American Christianity
by Kristin T. Lee
Being a Christian has nothing to do with being Chinese American-that's what Kristin T. Lee learned as a child. Fissures between the script she was given, her ethnic identity, and the inclusivity of Jesus opened wide. But what if we can repair the divide? In We Mend with Gold, Lee describes the breaking of faith and the sacred art of repair.
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Beyond Life and Death: The Way of True Freedom
by Jet Li
Martial arts legend and international movie star Jet Li distills ten powerful insights from his iconic career, his personal life and philosophies, and his thirty-year Buddhist practice Jet Li's story defies legend. Born into extreme hardship, he fought his way to become the youngest national martial arts champion in Chinese history at twelve years old, dominating opponents twice his size. He then became one of the first internationally renowned movie stars from China with films including Once Upon a Time in China, Hero, and Fearless. These films redefined martial arts for the modern world, making him a household name. But behind the glory lay a deeper battle: a search for meaning beyond fame, fortune, and physical skill. After a near-death encounter in the 2004 tsunami, Li turned inward, deepening his study of Tibetan Buddhism and dedicating his life to philanthropy, though he was at the height of his Hollywood career. For the very first time, Li shares the ten insights that have guided his life, in which anyone can find wisdom, guidance, and power, including: life is movement;the secret to self-defense;separate the bitterness from the pain;be a grandson to the world; andlearn from everyone.Li invites readers to share his interior life, to hear untold stories from his martial arts and film career, and to meditate with him on the nature of spiritual awakening. If you look deeply, you can see Li's life philosophy in many of his movies, and in Beyond Life and Death he fully links his own story and spiritual journey with ten actionable insights that anyone can apply to live a healthy and happy life.
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Checkmate: Genius, Lies, Ambition, and the Biggest Scandal in Chess
by Ben Mezrich
The best black-and-white drama this side of Chess on Broadway. - Vanity Fair From the bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House comes the cinematic true story about the biggest scandal in modern chess. In September 2022, the unthinkable happened: nineteen-year-old American chess prodigy Hans Niemann defeated world champion Magnus Carlsen in a stunning face-to-face match. Within days, Carlsen accused Niemann of cheating--a bombshell allegation that rocked the chess world. As the scandal spiraled, Chess.com--the dominant force in online chess--launched a high-stakes investigation igniting a global media firestorm. But Checkmate is about more than a cheating scandal. It's the story of a teenager willing to risk everything to rise to the top; a reclusive genius suddenly fighting to protect his legacy; and a centuries-old game transforming into a billion-dollar industry fueled by streaming, sponsorships, and Silicon Valley power players. With exclusive access to the central figures, Ben Mezrich takes readers deep inside the weird, wild, and cutthroat world of competitive chess--where genius meets ambition, and every move could be your last.
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Engaged Compassion: Seven Practices to Cultivate Resilience, Connection, and a Joyous Life
by Lobsang Tenzin Negi
Rooted in modern science and Buddhist meditative tradition, Engaged Compassion presents a seven-step path to lasting wellbeing through CBCT(R) (Cognitively Based Compassion Training), from the creator of the program developed at Emory University's Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics under the guidance of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. With the guidance of the Dalai Lama, former Tibetan Buddhist monk and current Emory professor and scholar, Lobsang Tenzin Negi, explores new ways of sharing ancient Tibetan wisdom to create a more compassionate, peaceful, and happier modern world. In a world where burnout and disconnection have become epidemic, people are searching for a way to care deeply for others without depleting themselves. Engaged Compassion offers a revolutionary approach to human flourishing that goes beyond traditional self-care advice. This isn't about building walls to protect yourself--it's about developing the emotional intelligence and practical skills needed to create more meaningful connections at both individual and societal levels. Through seven evidence-based steps, readers learn to transform their relationship with suffering--both their own and others'--into a source of resilience rather than exhaustion. Bridging time-tested contemplative methods with insights from cutting-edge psychology, it demonstrates how genuine compassion energizes us when practiced skillfully. The result? Discovering compassion as the key to making a meaningful difference in the world without sacrificing your own well-being.
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Inspiration Porn: Essays
by Ryan O'Connell
Hilarious and bawdy musings on disability, sex, family, and Hollywood, from Emmy-winning writer and creator of the Netflix series Special.For years, Ryan O'Connell wished he was different. Raised in a small Southern California beach town described as Laguna Beach with meth, his dad had taken off for greener pastures, and his alcoholic mom packed him lunches that wouldn't win any Top Chef: Quickfire challenges. On top of that, he had to be disabled and gay? Luckily, Ryan always had a love for writing. There, he could construct the narrative of my life before anyone can construct it for me. In essays that range from the poignant to the side-splitting, Ryan takes us along as he grapples with addiction, navigates the early days of writing for online media in NYC, and uses his voice to gain entrance into the cutthroat world of Hollywood, where he becomes a sought-after writer and creator. In other essays he asks the very important question: Are Straight People Okay? (short answer is no), explores the battle between your IRL vs URL identity, and ruminates on the healing power of being gay and on vacation. Finally, Ryan opens up his committed relationship and becomes a slut for the first time, keeping a diary of his sexual misadventures, and bravely healing his soul through his hole. In the tradition of writers like Samantha Irby and David Sedaris, INSPIRATION PORN is a candid and often raunchy look at a life lived without apologies.
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Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word, and Me
by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor
Part memoir by the daughter of the iconic comedian Richard Pryor, part exploration of the historical and contemporary use of the N-word, this hybrid book peels back the curtain on the life of Pryor and interrogates the most perplexing word in the American lexicon, a word he helped popularize. The N-word is one of the most perplexing, controversial and misunderstood words in the American lexicon. It's a word that Elizabeth Pryor has not only contemplated, it's one that she has taught and observed up close. When a white student quoted her father and blurted out the N-word in the middle of a class she was teaching, Professor Pryor's worlds collided. In that moment, she was forced to confront the history of the notorious slur in the United States, and her complicated relationship with her father Richard Pryor, who made the word a trademark of his comedy in the 1970s. As she dives into her research, her own memories of the N-word come flooding back in unprocessed memories that she hadn't thought about for decades. In reckoning with those memories, Elizabeth goes on a more public journey of discovery of the messy and sometimes surprising legacies of racism in the United States. A braided narrative that seamlessly integrates the history of the N-word with Elizabeth's own story of growing up the Black Jewish daughter of Richard Pryor, Something We Said follows Elizabeth as she becomes a leading scholar and teacher of the very word her father put on the pop culture map.
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Conversion Therapy Dropout: A Queer Story of Faith and Belonging
by Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez
A gay Christian's behind-the-scenes account of evangelical megachurches and eight years in conversion therapy. Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez charts a path to authentic faith beyond religious trauma, and reclaims wholeness after leaving the only world he ever knew.
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Malcolm in the Desert: Wisdom from the Spiritual Transformation of Malcolm X
by Ilyasah Shabazz
Essence's 15 Books By Black Authors We're Looking Forward To Powerful self-transformation practices inspired by Malcolm X's final years, written by his daughter Ilyasah Shabazz. A classic in the making. --Spike Lee When Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam and set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964, he did more than cross geographic borders-he transformed his vision of faith, justice, and freedom. In Malcolm in the Desert, Ilyasah Shabazz invites us to walk beside him on that journey of spiritual transformation, reframing pilgrimage as a modern practice. In retracing his steps, she helps us see how the work of changing the world so often begins within. A daughter's offering to her father's legacy, Malcolm in the Desert reveals the human heart of a legend. Shabazz extracts keen lessons about the value of slowing down, listening deeply, and remembering who we truly are. She calls us to respond to crisis with courage, to meet grief with love, to rediscover faith as a creative force for change, and to dream in more revolutionary colors. These pages paint a new picture of Malcolm X through compassionate prose and galvanizing historical insight that shine alongside Jungian, Buddhist, and Islamic principles and wisdom from leading poets and scholars. Shabazz ties it all together with simple practices to help us answer three central questions: Who are you? What do you care about? What is yours to do?
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The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright: The True Story of Mass Murder in Paradise
by Casey Sherman
The scandal. The genius. The murder that shocked America.Frank Lloyd Wright was more than the mind behind America's most iconic buildings--he was a man whose turbulent private life captivated a nation. The famous architect's stormy marriage to Kitty Wright and his infamous affair with another woman, Mamah Borthwick, ignited one of the country's first celebrity scandals, splashed across headlines from coast to coast.Then, in August 1914, scandal turned to horror. A tragedy at Taliesin, the Wisconsin home Wright built as a monument to love, shook the very foundation of Wright's life--and catapulted him back to the front pages of newspapers across the country as readers clamored for glimpses of his very darkest moments.In The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright, New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman delves beyond the myth of Wright's genius to reveal a man of relentless ambition, consuming passion, and devastating loss. With haunting intimacy and propulsive storytelling, Sherman delivers a portrait of an artist who could not escape the shadows of his own making--and who rose, again and again, from the ashes.
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Reality in Ruins: How Conspiracy Theory Became an American Evangelical Crisis
by Jared Stacy Phd
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. Dr. Stacy reports from the inside as someone raised and even ordained in one of the nation's most conservative denominations. Now, as a historian and post-evangelical theologian, Dr. Stacy traces the currents of pain, panic, and power that have thrust the evangelical church into a theological crisis with consequence for everyone.For concerned citizens, Christians who are sounding the alarm on Christian Nationalism, and anyone grieving the relationships paranoia has ruptured, Reality in Ruins profiles the problem, validates your pain, prepares you for good resistance, and empowers you to become the truth-tellers a common world deserves.
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Everything in Color: A Love Story
by Stephanie Stalvey
USA TODAY Bestseller In her luminous debut, Stalvey meditates on her separation from fundamentalist Christianity and how she found love despite questioning her faith. --Publishers Weekly, starred review An artistically attractive, self-reflective examination of one woman's post-Evangelical spirituality. --Library Journal Intimate, searching, and visually striking, a book that feels as much like a reckoning as it does a genuine release. --AIPT Comics Stalvey provides some of the clearest and most straightforward writing and visual storytelling coming out of the post-evangelical community today. --Hippocampus MagazineInterrogating her own upbringing in an evangelical community, Stephanie Stalvey weaves a story of faith, alienation, romance and acceptance, in this beautifully painted graphic memoir. Stephanie grew up in an evangelical community where love and obedience were overlapping themes. In this world, sin was inevitable, her body was a temptation, and desire was dangerous. Her own thoughts could not be trusted, because she was only saved if she believed the right things about God. But as she grew, built a life of her own, and fell in love with a young seminarian named James, the complexities of the human experience became impossible to ignore. Was God truly so exacting and judgmental? Could faith exist beyond these rigid borders? Could love be both passionate and pure? Her connection to James--honest, caring and sensual--became a safe place for her worldview to expand. And when their son was born, she understood love in a whole new way... suddenly, everything was sacred, everything was in color. Through striking prose and beautiful mixed media illustrations, Stalvey takes us on an emotional journey of faith, romance, motherhood and loss. With tenderness and honesty, she unravels the fear and guilt woven into her past, reclaims her sense of self, and shows us how to embrace a love that is healing, transformative, and wholly one's own.
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On Witness and Respair: Essays
by Jesmyn Ward
The collected creative nonfiction of a singular American writer, Jesmyn Ward, including widely shared classics, three never-before-published speeches, and an introductory essay. Respair (noun, obsolete), fresh hope after despair. From the two-time National Book Award winner and New York Times bestselling author Jesmyn Ward, this collection of essays documents more than a decade of work in the life of a singular writer often lauded as the heir apparent to Toni Morrison (LitHub). Beginning with her upbringing in a multigenerational household in rural Mississippi, the cradle of both her youth and her gift for storytelling, Ward brings her keen wisdom and hauntingly lyrical prose to a range of topics, following in her grandmother Dorothy's footsteps when she promises always to Tell it straight. Tell it all. True to her word, in these pages Ward contemplates the writers and novels of her youth and adulthood--the transformative power of discovering Octavia Butler as a twenty-something, the mirror that Richard Wright's novels held up to her own childhood, and of course, her lifelong love for Toni Morrison. Ward ruminates on her approach to both fiction and life, reflecting on the power of the novel, how to raise a Black son in an era of rising divisiveness and cruelty, as well as her own personal tragedies--including the titular essay of the collection, which tells the story of her partner's sudden death on the eve of the COVID-19 epidemic. Every bit as piercing and moving as her fiction, On Witness and Respair is a testament to Ward's powers as one of America's finest living writers (San Francisco Chronicle) and is a monument to hope, beauty, and personal and collective resilience.
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The Crooked Places Made Straight: Reflections on the Moral Meaning of America
by Raphael G. Warnock
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by The New York Times From Senator Reverend Raphael G. Warnock, a sermon in the public square on the issues that plague us most Senator Reverend Raphael G. Warnock is a transformational voice in Congress and the pastor of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Ebenezer Baptist Church, and for the semiquincentennial of America, he exhorts us to reach for the highest and noblest aspects of our national character. Senator Warnock argues that we suffer not from a paucity of resources but from a poverty of moral imagination. His sermon on the book of Isaiah draws from ideals resonant in his own faith and all the great faiths and other moral traditions, offering a bold vision of how to live and relate to one another in the land. A moral topography, he calls it, a geopolitics that centers love and justice, or as Dr. King would so often say, the beloved community. The Crooked Places Made Straight examines six crises at the center of American life: voting rights and voter suppression, gun violence, mass incarceration, the persistence of poverty, dark money in politics, and the climate emergency. This is not a naive faith, either. As Senator Warnock writes: Isaiah is no stranger to frustration with institutional leadership. He knows well the perils of public corruption, sophisticated legalized bribery, and a political class more interested in preserving its own power than in serving the people. . . . He's fed up with political leaders who are focused on their own gain at the expense of the people. Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves, he says. For Senator Warnock, democracy is the political enactment of a spiritual idea. A vote is a kind of prayer. The Crooked Places Made Straight is his inspiring vision for a more just and equitable America where communities thrive with hope and possibility and every child has a chance.
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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? In A God-Shaped Nation, Brook Wilensky-Lanford follows this essential American tension from first contact through the 2024 election. This is an expansive history of extraordinary religious questions, told through the ordinary people who grappled with them. It is a story of defiance: Anne Hutchinson, preaching against Puritan clergy; Reform rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise serving soft-shell crab to his kosher guests at an 1883 banquet; and Wovoka, a Paiute man who envisioned the Ghost Dance movement, which persisted in the face of violent government repression at Wounded Knee. It is also a story of community: Millerites waiting together in vain for Jesus's return on a rainy October night in 1844; Chinese immigrants bringing Daoist and Buddhist gods to their California temples; Mormons pushing westward to build their new Zion in Utah. And in the last fifty years, it has been a story of muscular political power, as the religious right has sought to shape the present and paint the past in its own image.At a moment when religion penetrates even the most secular aspects of American life, understanding its history is more essential than ever before. It is in history that the very human work of religion happens, Wilensky-Lanford shows us, and in ordinary time that even the most carved-in-stone tenets can and do change.
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Morton Grove Public Library
6140 Lincoln Ave
Morton Grove, Illinois 60053
(847) 965-4220www.mgpl.org |
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