The spirituality calendar, already the largest in religion publishing, keeps expanding, and its latest direction is back to foundations. Despite vastly differing theologies, publishers today seem to agree that spirituality books should apply spiritual teachings to real life, lived by ordinary people doing ordinary things like gardening, driving and shopping at bookstores for wise answers to life's questions. The world's many spiritual traditions offer varied answers and practices, but the operative word is tradition. After a decade when generic, nonsectarian or blended spirituality ruled the category, readers now seem eager to discover what thousands of years of experience and wisdom can offer as lessons and techniques for living today.
Tried and True
"There may have been a time when we were looking at 'cafeteria' spiritualities, but I think there's a turning back to the tried and tested," says Jim Manney, editorial director at Loyola Press. Catholic spirituality has a catechism's worth of perennial possibilities: saints, the Blessed Virgin, ancient spiritual disciplines. Such distinctive Catholic devotional practices as the Stations of the Cross, eclipsed since Vatican II, are the subject of Awake My Soul, edited by James Martin (Feb.), which contains essays by youthful writers that originally appeared in America magazine. The neo-traditional movement, Manney and others say, extends beyond Catholicism and holds throughout Christianity.
While many current spirituality books may be Catholic-authored, they are meaningful for all Christians interested in a religious tradition two millennia old that can furnish intellectually rigorous answers and emotionally satisfying consolation. Consolation, one of religion's traditional functions, is as important as ever in an anxious post—September 11 world, and the titles of two forthcoming Doubleday books sound the comforts of home. The Restless Heart: Finding Our Spiritual Home in Times of Loneliness by Ronald Rolheiser (May), a priest and internationally syndicated columnist, addresses the paradoxical pervasiveness of loneliness in a wired-for-communication society. In Unlikely Ways Home: Real-Life Spiritual Detours (July), another priest-author, Edward L. Beck, reflects on the presence of God in stories from everyday life.
Michelle Rapkin, publisher at Doubleday Religious, sees two other factors shaping themes and possibilities in spirituality publishing: the influence of the 76 million baby boomers, now facing aging and the passing of their parents: such life-cycle issues prompt new reflection from a reflective generation that was open to spiritual exploration. "I wonder if, at a certain age, you move past a lot of those pursuits and perhaps are circling back to places that are just more traditional and more familiar," Rapkin says.
Lyn Cryderman, v-p and associate publisher for Zondervan, relates the interests of aging baby boomers to the success of his house's The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? by Rick Warren (2002). "They hit age 50 and they start asking, 'What significance do I have?' and 'What mark am I making?' " He adds, however, that the volume of sales—more than 13.5 million—also suggests that the book "is reaching all ages and stages of faith development, including people who wouldn't lay claim to any particular faith."
Familiar Voices
Working to support interest in traditional themes is the structure of publishing itself. Tried and true solutions, and their authors, have a market advantage. Familiar voices and ideas are likelier to be heard in a crowded field. To stand out, books need a punchy marketing hook and a platform for their authors. Otherwise, "it's a real uphill battle just to get that book out there," says Doubleday's Rapkin.
Just because a successful author is dead doesn't stop the publication of new books. The writings of Henri J.M. Nouwen, a prolific Catholic spirituality writer whose appeal cuts across traditions, has been repackaged into Eternal Seasons: A Liturgical Journey with Henri J.M. Nouwen (Sorin, Feb.), edited by Michael Ford, a biographer of Nouwen. The volume of readings that reflect on the liturgical year is drawn from Nouwen's 40 books.
But spirituality writing based within a tradition doesn't necessarily exclude other traditions' teachings. "I think what we're trying to do is explore the depth dimension of the various religious traditions, not ignoring the fact there are significant differences or syncretizing them, but providing the richness of the various traditions," says Robert M. Hamma, editorial director at Ave Maria Press, which publishes Catholic interest books, and Sorin, its trade imprint for spirituality books. Putting these traditions into practice is the purpose of a new Sorin series, Exploring a Great Spiritual Practice, edited by John Kirvan. The first two books in the series are Journal Keeping by Carl J. Koch and Meditation by Richard Chilson (both March). Future books in the series will treat pilgrimage, fasting, prayer and retreats. Journaling as a practice within Judaism is explored and explained in The Jewish Journaling Book: How to Use the Jewish Tradition to Write Your Life and Explore Your Soul by Janet Ruth Falon (Jewish Lights, Apr.).
Some books on spiritual practices still draw across traditions to appeal to those alienated from specific religious traditions but attracted to spirituality in a general way. Snow Melting in a Silver Bowl: A Book of Active Meditations by Nancy Cunningham and Denise Geddes (Red Wheel, Aug.) and Fifty Ways to Feed Your Soul: A Spirituality and Health Book by Rosemary Cunningham (Red Wheel, June) appeal especially to women—Oprah Winfrey fans, for example—as well as more liberal members of established religious traditions. Michael Kerber, president and CEO of Red Wheel/ Weiser/Conari, says many of his authors come from specific traditions, but that readers don't have to share those traditions to appreciate their message. "The operative word is that these are practice books."
Self-help, Spirituality Part Company?
Harper San Francisco executive editor John Loudon sees the spirituality audience shaped in part by retreats and workshops and people who give and take such opportunities for spiritual education and practice. "The ideal writer is somebody who does workshops and retreats and also has something distinct to say," Loudon says. One proven writer is James Finley, student of Trappist monk Thomas Merton, psychotherapist and the author of Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God (June). Finley's work has a therapeutic element as well as Christian roots. Loudon thinks many readers of recovery books in the 1980s and early 1990s shifted to spirituality.
Jon Sweeney, editor-in-chief at SkyLight Paths, a Vermont-based multi-faith spirituality imprint, said that self-help and inspiration have dovetailed, with seeker-type readers drawn to such authors as Phil McGraw and Mitch Albom. People who are interested in self-empowerment will eventually move in the direction of faith but stay on the periphery of religious or spiritual practice, he believes. "It's not like they will go to church and buy prayer books and Bibles," Sweeney says. Spirituality publishing, by contrast, serves readers more familiar with traditional teachings who seek depth. Those readers might be retreat leaders working with spiritual beginners. "We're publishing more for spiritual explorers, the people who are already in the midst of spirituality and religion and want to know more and are trying to deepen their practice."
Angles on Anglicanism
The deepening of spiritual practice meets current political affairs within Anglican publishing. Almost 500 years of tradition as well as very contemporary controversy over the ordination of a gay bishop by the Episcopal Church in America has prompted lively interest in the Anglican faith, whose 70 million worldwide adherents include U.S. Episcopalians. "If you put Anglican in a book title, it sells," says Debra Farrington, publisher at Morehouse Publishing. "People discovered we were willing to ordain a gay bishop" and that has increased interest in the denomination, she believes.
What Farrington describes as an "open and scriptural" faith that includes a gay bishop also includes people interested in prayer books, readings for the liturgical seasons and other traditional practices. LaVonne Neff's The Gift of Faith: Short Reflections by Thoughtful Anglicans (Feb.), which culls classic Anglican writers, exemplifies the use of tradition. Farrington, who is the author of Hearing with the Heart: A Gentle Guide to Discerning God's Will for your Life (Jossey-Bass, 2002), also said spiritual discernment and other practices continue to interest readers, and they want instructions. "Readers don't want the theory," she says. "They think, 'My time is limited. How do I actually do this?' "
Everyday Activities
"Practical spirituality" is a label that many books could wear now. It encompasses both traditional spiritual practices—prayer, contemplation, spiritual formation—but also the larger, ever-present question of finding what's holy in everyday life—finding God while gardening or driving. Books from both evangelical and mainline denominational Christian houses offer their own particular answers to life questions.
Michael Hyatt, president and COO of Thomas Nelson, describes practical spirituality as providing real solutions to real problems. "People who come from a faith tradition want answers congruent with that faith tradition, from wanting to lose weight to getting their finances in order to better working and family relationships," Hyatt says. He notes that Nelson successes have come in the area of business and leadership, from authors such as John Maxwell and Andy Andrews. Publishing books about everyday concerns and activities has promoted overall company growth to 13 imprints focusing on different subjects, with Cool Springs Press, a gardening imprint, growing the fastest. "Those (areas) aren't Christian in any sense, but whatever Christians do, they do the same things as everybody else," Hyatt adds.
Reflecting on Tradition
A denominational Christian publisher such as United Methodist Publishing House's Abingdon trade imprint takes a different tack toward answering everyday life questions. Harriett Jane Olson, senior v-p of publishing and editorial director, says the house's spirituality books contain theological reflection on various subjects, drawing on a particular tradition and applying that tradition to some aspect of daily life. Some spirituality books may try to teach a practice or skill, while others may offer daily reflections or directions. Seemingly contemporary daily meditation books are in fact rooted in the age-old religious tradition of books of hours or readings for a day.
"What these books have in common is that they draw from the tradition, but the tradition is not their subject," Olson says. "It's an examined life—that's the point of it." A reflective function—searching everyday life for signs of the divine—animates St. Benedict on the Freeway: A Rule of Life for the 21st Century by Corinne Ware (2001) and the forthcoming On a Journey: Searching the Day with Scripture as My Compass by Thomas Ehrich (Aug.).
The scriptural reflection found in so many contemporary spirituality books may be a hybrid of Christian traditions, combining the ancient practice of lectio divina—reflective reading—with post-Reformation use of Christian scripture aimed at understanding the sacred word. "A lot of Protestant publishers, and Protestants themselves, have looked to the Catholic Church or other traditions for help with spiritual practices," says David Dobson, senior editor at Westminster John Knox, an imprint of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. "Those practices have, over the years, been interwoven with more Protestant practices like reading the word."
At WJK, spirituality books are not a major part of the publishing program, but the house is enjoying success with Credo, a spiritual memoir by cleric and social activist William Sloane Coffin (Jan.). Dobson said books like Coffin's and One Hundred Tons of Ice and Other Gospel Stories by Lawrence Wood (Jan.), a debut collection by a pastor who combines scripture, history, legends and pop culture, can also be described as inspiration, while a more classic spirituality title like the bestselling backlist Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life by Marjorie Thompson (1995) provides exercises for spiritual formation.
Scott Tunseth, publisher of Augsburg Fortress Books, a Lutheran publisher, says spirituality publishing is now blending traditional resources with a strong interest in mind-body-spirit concerns. Barbara Laymon's The Devil's In-Box (Augsburg, 2003) updates the classic C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters. And while spirituality continues to focus on individual development, some books relate spiritual practice to social transformation. L. Shannon Jung's book, Food for Life: The Spirituality and Ethics of Eating (Fortress, Mar.), examines the ethics of food and also considers world hunger and eating disorders.
Spiritual but Not Religious
Even while tradition-based spirituality asserts itself, there remains a solid niche for authors unaffiliated with any specific tradition who instead blend spirituality, inspiration and psychology. Harper San Francisco's Loudon calls this approach "get-real" spirituality, offering as an example Oriah Mountain Dreamer (In Profile, this issue), whose Opening the Invitation (June) is a gift repackaging of her bestseller The Invitation (1999), with two new chapters. "She's very real about how life operates and how fallible we are," Loudon says.
Another popular spiritual-but-not-religious author with a new title is Conversations with God author Neale Donald Walsch. In Tomorrow's God: Our Greatest Spiritual Challenge (Atria, Mar.), Walsch again uses the dialogue format to introduce a God whose will doesn't sanction destruction but promotes positive developments in education, politics and other practical realms. A print run of 135,000 bets on sizeable readership.
Other titles seeking a spirituality that transcends institutional religion include Jaded: Hope for Believers Who Have Given Up on Church but Not on God by A.J. Kiesling (Baker, Mar.) and Thinking Outside the Church: 110 Ways to Connect with Your Spiritual Nature by Jennifer Leigh Selig (Andrews McMeel, June).
Words and Pictures
A passion for visual media, especially among younger adults, combined with interest in tradition and practices is yielding more books that pair words and pictures. Meditation books such as The Shoes of Van Gogh: A Spiritual and Artistic Journey to the Ordinary by Cliff Edwards (Crossroad, June) relate reflections to art by Van Gogh. Essays and illustrations combine in Autumn: A Spiritual Biography of the Season, edited by Gary Schmidt and Susan M. Felch, with illustrations by Mary Azarian, a Caldecott Medal winner (SkyLight Paths, Aug).
Zondervan is repackaging a popular title in a more visual format to make it accessible to more readers. What's So Amazing About Grace? by prolific evangelical Christian author Philip Yancey (1998) has been repackaged into a visual edition that uses 30 percent of the original text and adds art that illustrates Yancey's concepts.
Art- and craft-making as spiritual expressions is growing as one kind of spiritual practice—not really new, since sacred arts are so embedded within all the world's religious traditions. Sacred Rituals: Labyrinths, Sand Paintings and Other Spiritual Art by Belinda Recio and Eileen London (Fair Winds, Apr.) offers instructions on making spiritual art. Within Sacred Circles: Meditations and Mandala Quilts by Susan Towner-Larsen (Pilgrim Press, June) is one of several books spotlighting quilting as spiritual practice. "There is a lot of crafting going on that's finding its way into the spiritual community," said Jan Johnson, publisher at Red Wheel/Weiser/Conari, where popular titles that combine crafts and spiritual ritual include A String and A Prayer: How to Make and Use Prayer Beads by Eleanor Wylie and Maggie Oman Shannon (2002).
The Poetic Word
Spirituality in verse is a topic partly fueled by America's bestselling poet Rumi, the 13th-century Sufi mystic popularized through contemporary adaptations by poet Coleman Barks. Rumi publisher Harper San Francisco is bringing out The Drowned Book: Ecstatic and Earthy Reflections of Bahauddin, the Father of Rumi (April), poetic renderings by Barks of the writings of Rumi's father, also a Sufi master. Poetry and spirituality have been companions in all spiritual traditions, and SkyLights Paths' new Mystic Poets series includes editions of selected works of Catholic poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, modern Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore and Hafiz, a Persian Sufi.
"People are beginning to think of poetry as spiritual nurture," says Morehouse's Farrington, who has under contract a book of poetry readings for the season of Advent, due out in 2005 by William Countryman.
From tradition-based spiritual practices to spiritually expressive craft-making, books within the huge category of spirituality continue to multiply, even as growth in religious publishing outstrips growth in the rest of publishing. "That says something," suggests Zondervan's Lyn Cryderman, "about what people are looking for."
| What's Inside?Though religion books today range across virtually every topic, from history to sex to the Simpsons, the four largest categories by far are spirituality, inspiration, prayer and Christian living. Each season brings literally hundreds of titles that fall under these subject headings. In this issue of Religion Update, we track movement in these dominant categories, the meat and potatoes of religion publishing. In spirituality, we examine topical trends and highlight which faith traditions seem to be most actively published. Then we take a critical look at the "inspiration" label, which often seems to be a catch-all term that has little meaning in the bookstore—or to the consumer. "Christian living" titles made up fully half of the sales of Christian books last year; we ask why and how. Finally, we examine the challenges of making books on prayer stand out when there are so many to choose from. What makes them viable in such a crowded marketplace? Guidance, consolation, encouragement, joy—books like these continue to offer such riches to searching readers. —Lynn Garrett Spirituality in Other Traditions  Interest in traditional Christian spirituality and practices parallels publishing about other world religions. Buddhism's implantation in the West a generation ago means there is now an academic establishment and a variety of Asian communities including Tibetan teachers. All this has heightened awareness of realms of sacred texts and practices whose surface the West has barely scratched. Much can be translated or applied, and specialty publishers are deepening their lists and broadening their approach.As have other spirituality publishers, Buddhist specialists have added fiction. "We have been doing more and more things that really bring together Buddhism and Western contexts and cultural forms," says Tim McNeill, publisher at Wisdom Publications. Nixon Under the Bodhi Tree and Other Works of Buddhist Fiction, edited by Kate Wheeler (Apr.), collects works by writers including Pico Iyer and less well-established, younger authors. "It's breaking open a new genre for Buddhist publishing," McNeill says. Nonfiction titles likewise apply a Buddhist perspective to specific Western activities. Medicine and Compassion: A Guide to Training in Compassion for the Health Professional by Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche with David Shlim (Sept.) offers to health care professionals Tibetan teachings on developing compassion in their work. In the case of Boston-based Shambhala Publications, broadening includes fiction and books outside Buddhism. Desert Father: A Journey in the Wilderness with St. Anthony by James Cowan (Aug.) combines travelogue with theology. While Shambhala's bread-and-butter remains core Tibetan, Vipassana and Zen Buddhist titles, it is adding visionary fiction by such authors as Kate Horsley and the well-known Ursula LeGuin, as well as a refurbished 150-year-old classic, Walden by Henry David Thoreau, with a foreword by essayist Terry Tempest Williams and wood engravings by Michael McCurdy (Jan.) "We grow more eclectic as we've discovered the vision includes a lot of things," says managing editor Dave O'Neal. Books about the Buddhist and Islamic religious traditions and their adaptation within contemporary America represent a fertile area outside the religious mainstream, says Steven Scholl, whose White Cloud Press publishes books in those traditions. Waking Up in America by Ken Taub (May) examines the possibility of Buddhist enlightenment in materialistic America. Persistent interest in Sufi poet Rumi bodes well for continuing exploration of the vastness of Islamic spirituality. "We're going to see a deepening within Islamic secondary literature," predicts Scholl. Judaism doesn't have the American cultural novelty that with Buddhism and Islam do,, but spirituality publishing does wrestle with the question of the application of the Jewish tradition to everyday life. Stuart Matlins, publisher at Jewish Lights, which specializes in spirituality, said people may be interested in traditional rituals and practices, but their interest does not extend to traditional theology. Persistent interest in the Kabbalah "has been surprising," he says. "I think this reflects the desire to find new and old ways to create a richer spiritual life." —M.Z.N. The View from the Shelves  Spirituality means many things to many people; to booksellers it also means deciding where to shelve a book or where to steer a customer asking for a title about life's big questions. When PW asked selected booksellers across the country what they're selling in the category, the titles they mentioned correlated, unsurprisingly, with bestseller lists, but also showed the endurance of quality religion backlist. Their sales point to a variety of factors prompting interest in a book: media coverage, local interest, author appearances and church or book group use.The ripple effect from The Da Vinci Code has been washing over the country coast-to-coast. Elaine Pagels's Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas (Random House, 2003) is the most frequently mentioned beneficiary of that current of interest. It's a top seller at Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Mass.; the heartland seven-store Joseph-Beth Group in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee; and Powell's Books in Portland, Ore. At two-store indie Lee Booksellers in Lincoln, Nebr., a radio show about Brown's novel prompted a run on Lost Christianities: The Battle for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew by Bart Ehrman (Oxford, 2003). Lee Booksellers manager Miki Wigley says media coverage of titles or topics prompts sales. So does adoption by churches or reading groups. "That's kind of how our spirituality section goes: whatever a church is studying," says the nine-year bookselling veteran. And so Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Life (Zondervan, 2002), which has been used by churches and groups across the country, has done well in Lincoln, Nebr., as well as Sarasota, Fla., where it was the number 1 seller in January at Sarasota News and Books, a 30,000-title indie. Liz Sullivan, book buyer at Book People in Austin, Tex., thinks that Warren's sales can be related to the bestselling The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce Wilkinson (Multnomah, 2000). Such books answer readers' need for support with everyday life and concerns. "What started with The Prayer of Jabez has continued with The Purpose-Driven Life," Sullivan tells PW. "I think that's going to continue." Booksellers agreed that the topic of practical living is certainly perennial, but whether a particular title in the area is predominantly secular or religious can vary, given today's capacious definition of the term "spiritual" and the often fuzzy boundary between spirituality and self-help. Dr. Phil may use the term spirit, but psychologist and TV personality McGraw is secular, whereas Rick Warren, pastor of a Southern Baptist megachurch in California, is distinctly Christian. "It's amazing how much time we spend talking about this," notes Catherine Rihm, director of purchasing for the Joseph-Beth Group. Beyond a top tier of currently popular titles and topics, other subjects and themes varied considerably. Rihm says "inspirational" titles outsell anything within spirituality at the group's seven stores. Bradley Trevor Grieve's The Blue Day Book (Andrews McMeel, 2000) is a top seller. (For a discussion on defining that category, see "What Is 'Inspiration'?" in this issue.) Comparative religion remains a briskly selling category. Several booksellers mentioned Karen Armstrong and Huston Smith as consistent strong authors on the subject. At Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, near the university but not connected to it and attracting a generally well-educated clientele, "We sell a lot of science-and-religion titles," says head buyer Carole Horne. Also popular there is Credo (Westminster John Knox, Jan.) the newest nonfiction reflections from activist cleric William Sloane Coffin. At the other end of the country, though from the same liberal portion of the theological spectrum, author and theologian Marcus Borg's The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith (Harper San Francisco, 2003) is among the top sellers at the Episcopal Bookstore in Seattle, at the heart of the country's least-churched region, the Northwest. The bookstore has an active Web site that draws customers from throughout the country, says co-owner Nancy Marshall. Books about spiritual discernment and spiritual practices are strong for her, among them Knitting into the Mystery: A Guide to the Shawl-Knitting Ministry by Susan S. Izard and Susan S. Jorgensen (Morehouse, 2003). Buddhism's audience remains strong, as does the appeal of Vietnamese Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh, whose new titles and tour of the U.S. in 2003 may have made his sales slightly stronger than those for the Dalai Lama's many books. The more in-depth Buddhist titles do well at Harvard Book Store. General spirituality books, aimed at people likely to say they are spiritual but not religious, also maintain an audience. Booksellers commonly cited authors Neale Donald Walsch and Eckhart Tolle; Don Miguel Ruiz's The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (Amber-Allen, 1997); and quirky backlist. "Benjamin Hoff's The Te of Piglet (Dutton, 1992) keeps on going," says David Chaplin, general manager at Sarasota News and Books. —M.Z.N. |
