After extraordinary sales with his Conversations with God series, Walsch returns to the inspirational well one more time with this collection of real-life inspirational stories. While the stories are stunning and heartfelt, they are only more of the same. As the author acknowledges, "I've surrounded these stories with commentaries and reflections based on the rich material in the 1,500 pages of the five With God
books." Similarly, motifs such as "we create through intention" and "there are dimensions for cosmic travel" have a déjà vu quality from the works of Deepak Chopra, Richard Bach et al. That "God is all" is no revelation to any New Age reader or mystic. The doubts are also familiar. If "God never fails" to provide a miracle, why accept that "God, Thy will be done"? Walsch argues that we create everything through our intentions—unless we don't, as in God's "act of grace" for heart patient Fred Ruth's miraculous, but unsought, recovery. More insidious is the idea that the sufferer "wants" his suffering. If miracles only require a genuine, preferably desperate, desire, then those who "still" suffer are not desperate enough or are not listening. The "cure" is there all along, but they do not see it—and God, for some reason, withholds an "act of grace." Someone should have a conversation with God about that. (June)
Forecast:Walsch is out of the country through July, so Hampton Roads will not be doing an author tour for this title, which has a 50,000 print run. It should perform well but not spectacularly. In October, the press will release
Conversations with God for Teens, which will have an aggressive publicity campaign (and a mass market edition by Scholastic, releasing in the spring).
