The Dalai Lama lays out the Buddhist concept of emptiness and environmentalist Bill McKibbon reflects on faith, patriotism and social change, are among religion and spirituality editors’ upcoming headlines in May
nonfiction
May 3
Fiercely Loved: God’s Crazy Thoughts About You by Lisa Bevere (Revell, $19.00, ISBN 978-0-8007-4170-9). Bevere’s 90 devotions highlight God’s vision that believers are full of love, joy, grace and mercy.
The Circle of Women: How to Come Together with Meaning, Intention and Purpose by Anoushka Florence (Hardie Grant, $24.99, ISBN 978-1-74379-748-8). Florence offers a practical guide to creating a sacred space for blessings, healing, energy and magic.
Living Gratitude: 28 Days of Prayer and Thanksgiving (Abingdon, $9.99 trade journal, ISBN 978-1-7910-2406-2). Pastors, business and church leaders, authors, speakers and other contributors offer devotions on gratitude, generosity and prayer.
soul healing by Gregory Dickow (chosen, $24.99, ISBN 978-0-8007-6245-2). Pastor and talk show host Dickow focuses on God’s love as a strength to overcome emotional pain, suffering and fear.
May 10
Christianity and modern medicine: foundations of bioethics by Mark Wesley Foreman and Lindsay C. Leonard (Kregel, $29.99 business journal, ISBN 978-0-8254-4756-3). Two bioethics experts address contemporary moral challenges, offering principles and guidelines for ethical decision-making from a Christian perspective.
Finding Joy in the Empty Nest: Discover Purpose and Passion in the Next Phase of Life by Jim Burns (Zondervan, $18.99 business paper, ISBN 978-0-310-36262-3). Burns, blogger and author, specializes in providing Bible resources for every stage of family life, including learning to thrive when the kids are grown and gone.
Mindfulness Meditations: Simple Meditations for Managing Stress, Practicing Gratitude, and Finding Joy in Everyday Life by Susan Gregg (Alpha, $14.99 business paper, ISBN 978-0-7440-5696-9). Gregg, spiritual teacher and life coach, teaches how to meditate and tap into your inner wisdom.
No Escape: A Uyghur’s Story of Oppression, Genocide and Digital Dictatorship in China by Nury Turkel (Hanover Square, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-3354-6956-4). A human rights activist, born in a Chinese “re-education camp” for Uyghurs, is using his life story to sound the alarm about the plight of Chinese Muslims.
Not to Win: Why Choosing a Side Sidelines the Church by Andy Stanley (Zondervan Reflective, $22.99 business paper, ISBN 978-0-3101-3892-1). Pastor Stanley calls on Christians to abandon culture wars and instead focus on Jesus’ priorities, including loving others.
The Other Side of Nothing: The Zen Ethics of Time, Space, and Being by Brad Warner (New World Library, $18.95 trade journal, ISBN 978-1-6086-8804-3). The Buddhist teacher Warner strives to explain in simple language a fundamental principle of Zen: that everything in the universe is interdependent.
The Quran and the Christian: An In-Depth Look at the Book of Islam for Followers of Jesus by Matthew Aaron Bennett (Kregel, $19.99 business journal, ISBN 978-0-8254-4708-2). Baptist scholar Bennett aims to help mission-minded Christians understand Islam and communicate the gospel to Muslims.
Ritual as Remedy: Embodied Practices for Soul Care by Mara Branscombe (Findhorn, $18.99 business journal, ISBN 978-1-64411-424-7). Step-by-step instructions for ancient and modern rituals to awaken your inner mystic and find transformational wisdom, strength and love.
Spirit Weaver: Wisdom Teachings of the Female Path of Magic by Seren Bertrand (Bear & Company, $20 business journal, ISBN 978-1-59143-435-1). Bertrand guides women to become female superpowers through many forms of magic and mystery, with the wisdom of witches, priestesses, goddesses and shamans.
May 17
Chaplaincy and Spiritual Care in the 21st Century: An Introduction, edited by Wendy Caddy and Shelly Rambo (Univ. of North Carolina, $24.95 business paper, ISBN 978-1-4696-6760-7). Cadge and Rambo offer a religious studies course tailored to training chaplains who are more religiously and demographically diverse.
The forbidden body: sex, horror and religious imagination by Douglas E. Cowan (NYU, $30 business paper, ISBN 978-1-4798-0311-8). Cowan, a professor of religious studies, argues that horror — portrayed in fiction, film, and culture — confronts religious readers with questions about identity, sexuality, and suffering.
The Good and the Beautiful You: Discovering the Person Jesus Created You to Be by James Bryan Smith (IVP Training, $25, ISBN 978-0-8308-4694-8) aims to dismantle the toxic self-narratives that hold people back from growing spiritually and offers practices to help readers redirect their souls towards Christ.
Keeping space: how to be with ourselves, communicate with others and face a world of uncertainty by Matt Kahn (Sounds True, $22.99, ISBN 978-1-68364-914-4). From traditional religions to new spirituality, Kahn points out that love is the foundation on which 10 key principles such as mercy, dignity, bravery, etc. are built.
Lennon, Dylan, Alice and Jesus by Greg Laurie (Salem, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-6845-1295-9). Megachurch pastor Laurie traces the struggles of music legends against the excesses of fame and offers their testimonies of redemption.
In search of oneself by the Dalai Lama and Thubten Chodron (Wisdom, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-6142-9795-6). The seventh volume in the Library of Wisdom and Compassion series delves into the concept of emptiness, a key to the Buddhist view of reality.
The 2% Way: How a Small Improvements Philosophy Led Me to Oxford, the NFL and Neurosurgery by Myron L. Rolle (Zondervan, $26.99, ISBN 978-0-3103-6365-1). A Rhodes Scholar turned footballer turned doctor, Rolle shares advice on living faith and service that drove him to achieve his goals.
The Race-Wise Family: Ten Postures to Become Homes of Healing and Hope by Helen Lee, Michelle Reyes (WaterBrook, $17 business paper, ISBN 978-0-593-19395-2). The authors offer Bible-based approaches, activities, and resources for raising children who treat all people equally and respectfully as part of their Christian witness.
May 24
All the ways the dead still speak by Caleb Wilde (Broadleaf, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-5064-7161-7). Sixth-generation funeral director Wilde reflects on grief, the afterlife, and how our ancestors live within us.
Parenting for a Better World: Social Justice Practices for Your Family and the Planet by Susanna Snyder and Ellen Ott Marshall (Chalice, $18.99, ISBN 978-0-8272-3186-3). The authors offer spiritual and scriptural resources to even the busiest parents to engage their families in caregiving and work for justice in their daily lives.
The Social Gospel of Russia: The Orthodox Pastoral Movement in Famine, War and Revolution by Daniel Scarborough (Univ. of Wisconsin, $79.95, ISBN 978-0-2993-3720-9). Historian Scarborough traces how the roles of pastors in Orthodox churches changed with the end of the Czars, the rise of Communism and the modernization of Russia.
Yoga for Times of Change: Practices and Meditations for Working Through Stress, Anxiety, Grief and Life Transitions by Nina Zolotow (Shambhala, trade journal $24.95, ISBN 978-1-61180-928-2). Zolotow offers yoga poses, breathing practices, relaxation, mantras and meditation techniques to find strength and support.
May 26
Gaslighted by God: rebuilding a disillusioned faith by Tiffany Yecke Brooks (Eerdmans, $22.99, ISBN 978-0-8028-7868-7). Brooks speaks to readers who feel damaged by fundamentalist Christianity, highlighting how scripture shows the complexity of God and how faith can withstand doubt.
May 31st
Am I still a Christian? A guide for the doubters, the disappointed and the disillusioned by Brian McLaren (St. Martin’s Essentials, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-2502-6279-0). McLaren says many people, including religious leaders and clergy, ask themselves this question, and he suggests several ways to determine one’s religious identity.
The flag, the cross and the station wagon: A grizzled American looks back on his childhood in the suburbs and wonders what happened by Bill McKibben (Holt, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-2508-2360-1). McKibben, founder of climate activism nonprofit 350.org and an early voice of Christian environmentalism, examines the nation’s trends toward overconsumption, racism and religious strife.
Little prayers for ordinary days (IVP, $15, ISBN 978-1-5140-0339-8 by Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren, and writers and musicians Flo Paris Oakes and Katy Bowser Hutson. The authors present ways to integrate liturgy and prayer in Christian family life.
soul medicine by Gayle Madeleine Randall (Open Books, $20 business journal, ISBN 978-1-9568-9705-0). Physician and shaman Randall draws on both Western and Eastern medicine to discuss health care in today’s environmental conditions.
Fiction
May 3
Brisbane by Eugène Vodolazkin, trans. by Marian Schwartz (Plough, $26.95, ISBN 978-1-6360-8045-1). A disabled guitarist finds purpose in mentoring a teenage musician with cancer.
The sweet life by Suzanne Woods Fisher (Revell, $16.99 business paper, ISBN 978-0-8007-3947-8). In Fisher’s new series, set on Cape Cod, an abandoned bride and her troubled mother who open an ice cream shop must turn to the groom-to-be for help.
What remains true by Nancy Naigle (WaterBrook, business journal $16, ISBN 978-0-5931-9361-7). Two people with secrets – a divorcee and a rodeo star – each try to make peace with the past as they start their lives over in a quaint North Carolina town.
May 24
Potiphar’s wife by Mesu Andrews (WaterBrook, $16 trade journal, ISBN 978-0-5931-9376-1). Andrews turns to the Genesis story in which Joseph is imprisoned on false charges after rejecting the advances of his master’s wife. When God rewards his faithfulness, his heart is also changed.
The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon by Linda MacKillop (Kregel, business journal $15.99, ISBN 978-0-8254-4732-7). An elderly woman whose memory is fading reluctantly moves in with her granddaughter’s family in a run-down farmhouse where everyone is trying to break through her shell.
