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Spirituality and Religion May 2026 |
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| The Supreme Gift: Love Is the Greatest Thing in the World by Paulo Coelho, translated by Margaret Jull CostaDrawing on spiritual traditions across cultures, this brief meditative work posits that love is humanity’s highest calling. Originally published in 1991 in Brazil and told in Paulo Coelho’s signature parable‑like style, it adapts a 19th-century sermon for a more modern audience, inviting readers to consider how compassion, care, and generosity shape personal purpose more than faith alone. |
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| Braving the Truth: Essential Essays for Reckoning With and Reimagining Faith by Rachel Held EvansThis posthumous collection of essays from Rachel Held Evans, who unexpectedly passed away in 2019, reflects her ongoing commitment to questioning inherited beliefs while remaining deeply engaged with faith and community. Written with honesty and warmth, the pieces explore doubt, grace, and belonging, modeling a generous, open‑handed approach to belief during times of personal and cultural change. |
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| A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness by Michael PollanEmbracing the mystery of consciousness from every angle -- scientific, philosophical, spiritual, and literary -- Michael Pollan asks the question: what does it mean to be aware? Ranging far beyond the human mind, he explores how consciousness may take shape both artificially and throughout the natural world, encouraging readers to look more closely at their own inner lives and to consider the possibility that the universe itself is more alive than we might think. |
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| The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change by Rebecca SolnitSurveying decades of cultural, ecological, and social change, Rebecca Solnit’s hopeful reflection argues that profound transformation often unfolds quietly and unevenly. By tracing movements toward interconnection and collective responsibility, she invites readers to look beyond despair and recognize how new ways of living emerge from endings. |
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Things Become Other Things: A Walking Memoir
by Craig Mod
Photographer and essayist Craig Mod is a veteran of long solo walks. But in 2021, during the pandemic shutdown of Japan's borders, one particular walk around the Kumano Kodåo routes--the ancient pilgrimage paths of Japan's southern Kii Peninsula--took on an unexpectedly personal new significance. Mod found himself reflecting on his own childhood in a post-industrial American town, his experiences as an adoptee, his unlikely relocation to Japan at nineteen, and his relationship with one lost friend, whose life was tragically cut short after their paths diverged. For Mod, the walk became a tool to bear witness to a quiet grace visible only when 'you're bored out of your skull and the miles left are long.' Tracing a 300-mile-long journey, Things Become Other Things folds together history, literature, poetry, Shinto and Buddhist spirituality, and contemporary rural life in Japan via dozens of conversations with aging fishermen, multi-generational inn owners, farmers, and kissaten cafe 'mamas'--
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 Contact your librarian for more great books! |
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