Religion and a Sense of Place

When people think of Wicca, say authors Raven Kaldera and Tannin Schwartzstein, they tend to conjure images of bucolic festivals, dryadic rituals and flower-wreathed maidens. In other words, the public mind associates paganism with the seasons and the countryside. But that's only a part of the picture. In The Urban Primitive: Paganism in the Concrete Jungle, Kaldera and Schwartzstein contend that modern neo-paganism is actually an urban-based movement, and they offer specific rituals and hints on living in the city. Here, readers will learn how to use magick to find an elusive parking space, understand the symbolic meaning of various body piercings and discover spells for unearthing treasures in a junkyard. There is even a chapter on the magickal properties of urban weeds such as bittersweet, dandelion, kudzu (who knew?) and ragweed. The tone is brassy and hip, with comic-book style illustrations and cartoons. Concerning graffiti, for example, the authors claim that "any or all naked women or female body parts, no matter how badly drawn, are figures of the Goddess and thus can be invoked for her protection. Consider it to be a work of reclaiming." (Llewellyn, $14.95 paper 288p ISBN 0-7387-0259-5; Oct.)

For those who prefer their latkes deep-fried and who daven with a drawl, there's Shalom Y'All: Images of Jewish Life in the American South. In this thoughtful coffee-table book, Vicki Reikes Fox explores Jewish Southern life, well complemented with intriguing photographs by Bill Aron. The idea for the book emerged out of the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in Mississippi, and there's noble history here, as in the photos of kosher restaurants and department stores of days gone by. There's also a sense of deep, living tradition as two unique cultures merge with each other. A Mississippi woman explains the wisdom of Friday night Shabbat services ("kids can come before they go to football games"), and an Arkansas native explains her grandmother's cardinal rule that she would not eat bacon on Saturday. Driving Miss Daisy author Alfred Uhry offers a delightful foreword on growing up Jewish in the Deep South. There is so much warmth and love in this book that it feels like challah fresh from the oven—served with grits, of course. (Algonquin, $24.95 164p ISBN 1-56512-355-7; Oct.)

Darwin's Faith

Anti-evolutionary writers tend to depict Charles Darwin as a godless infidel who was bent on disproving biblical events and supplanting religion with a new god—science. But in Darwin's Religious Odyssey, philosophy professor William Phipps takes great pains to demonstrate that Darwin's religious worldview, well, evolved; he began as an orthodox Anglican priest-in-training and wound up as a self-tortured but not irreligious skeptic. The book's greatest strength is its reliance on Darwin's own journals and correspondence to depict his "circuitous journey of faith." One 1860s letter shows the naturalist's dilemma: "With respect to the theological view of the question: this is always painful to me. I am bewildered. I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world.... On the other hand, I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force." (Trinity Press Int'l, $16 paper 208p ISBN 1-56338-384-5; Sept.)

Primers on the World's Religions

Interest in Islam is at an all-time high, and beginners who seek basic information about this world faith tradition will find an excellent resource in A Concise Encyclopedia of Islam.

In short alphabetical entries from the Abbasids to the practice of zakat (almsgiving), Gordon Newby presents fundamental facts about the important concepts, people, places and movements in Islam. The entries are quite short (the note on Sufism, for example, is just over 40 lines long), but full of data. The appendices include a chronology, a list of the 99 divine names and a bibliography for further reading. (Oneworld, $16.95 paper 288p ISBN 1-85168-295-3; Sept. 30)

More than five dozen translations of the Tao te Ching exist in English, making it questionable whether there is a need for yet another. But Stephen Hodge's Tao te Ching: A New Translation and Commentary is revisionist enough to warrant a look. He spends a good part of the introduction situating Lao Tzu's work in the context of the Warring States period (475—221 B.C.E.), even to the point of neglecting to tell the reader much about the content of the text itself. He also discusses the perplexing question of authorship and outlines various translation difficulties. The remainder of the book is more accessible, and is organized thematically to help the reader understand the Tao te Ching's key ideas. Hodge writes well, and the book is beautifully designed with more than 100 photographs and illustrations. (Barron's, $21.95 paper 176p ISBN 0-7641-2168-5; Sept.)

The Literary Christian

In More Than Words: Contemporary Writers on the Works That Shaped Them, some of the best writers in the Christian community discuss their formative creative influences. Madeleine L'Engle pays tribute to George MacDonald, fantasy writer Stephen Lawhead extols the contributions of J.R.R. Tolkien and Harold Fickett revisits Flannery O'Connor. This collection, which was edited by James Calvin Schaap and compiled and introduced by Philip Yancey, is a reflective and generous homage to literary greatness. Other contributors include Richard Foster, Walter Wangerin Jr., Virginia Stem Owens and Calvin Miller. (Baker, $16.99 paper 288p ISBN 0-8010-6404-X; Sept.)