The Dalai Lama expounds on the Buddhist concept of emptiness and environmentalist Bill McKibbon reflects on faith, patriotism, and social change, are among the upcoming titles from religion and spirituality publishers in May
Nonfiction
May 3
Fiercely Loved: God’s Wild Thoughts About You by Lisa Bevere (Revell, $19.00, ISBN 978-0-8007-4170-9). Bevere’s 90 devotions highlight God’s view of believers as full of love, joy, grace, and mercy.
The Women’s Circle: How to Gather 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 magik.
Living Gratitude: 28 Days of Prayer and Thanksgiving (Abingdon, $9.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-7910-2406-2). Pastors, business and church leaders, authors, speakers, and other contributors offer devotions on gratitude, generosity, and prayer.
Soul Cure 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 force for overcoming emotional pain, suffering, and fear.
May 10
Christianity and Modern Medicine: Foundations for Bioethics by Mark Wesley Foreman and Lindsay C. Leonard (Kregel, $29.99 trade paper, 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 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-310-36262-3). Burns, a blogger and author, specializes in providing Biblical resources for every stage of family life including learning to thrive when the kids are grown and gone.
Mindful Meditations: Simple Meditations to Manage Stress, Practice Gratitude, and Find Joy in Everyday by Susan Gregg (Alpha, $14.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-7440-5696-9). Gregg, a 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 China’s Digital Dictatorship by Nury Turkel (Hanover Square, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-3354-6956-4). A human rights activist, who was born in a Chinese “reeducation camp” for Uyghurs, uses his life story to raise alarm over the plight of Chinese Muslims.
Not in It to Win It: Why Choosing Sides Sidelines the Church by Andy Stanley (Zondervan Reflective, $22.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-3101-3892-1). Pastor Stanley calls on Christians to quit the culture wars and instead focus on Jesus’s 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 paper, ISBN 978-1-6086-8804-3). Buddhist teacher Warner strives to explain in plain language a fundamental principle of Zen: that everything in the universe is interrelated.
The Qur’an and the Christian: An In-depth Look into the Book of Islam for Followers of Jesus by Matthew Aaron Bennett (Kregel, $19.99 trade paper, 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 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64411-424-7). Detailed instructions for ancient and modern rituals to awaken one’s inner mystic and find transformational wisdom, strength, and love.
Spirit Weaver: Wisdom Teachings from the Feminine Path of Magic by Seren Bertrand (Bear & Company, $20 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-59143-435-1). Bertrand guides women to become feminine superpowers through numerous forms of magic and mysteries, with the wisdom of witches, priestesses, goddesses and shamans.
May 17
Chaplaincy and Spiritual Care in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction, edited by Wendy Cadge and Shelly Rambo (Univ. North Carolina, $24.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4696-6760-7). Cadge and Rambo offer a religious studies course suitable for training more religiously and demographically diverse chaplains.
The Forbidden Body: Sex, Horror, and the Religious Imagination by Douglas E. Cowan (NYU, $30 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4798-0311-8). Cowan, a religious studies professor, argues that horror—portrayed in fiction, film, and culture—confronts religious readers with questions about identity, sexuality, and suffering.
The Good and Beautiful You: Discovering the Person Jesus Created You to Be by James Bryan Smith (IVP Formation, $25, ISBN 978-0-8308-4694-8) aims to dismantle toxic self-narratives that hinder people from growing spiritually and offers practices meant to help readers redirect their soul toward Christ.
Holding 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 rest 10 key principles such as mercy, worthiness, bravery, and more.
Lennon, Dylan, Alice, and Jesus by Greg Laurie (Salem, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-6845-1295-9). Megachurch pastor Laurie traces music legends’ struggles with the excesses of fame and offers their testimonies of finding redemption.
Searching for the Self by the Dalai Lama and Thubten Chodron (Wisdom, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-6142-9795-6). The seventh volume of 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 Philosophy of Small Improvements Took 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 physician, Rolle shares advice on living a life of faith and service that drove him to reach his goals.
The Race-Wise Family: Ten Postures to Becoming Households of Healing and Hope by Helen Lee, Michelle Reyes (WaterBrook, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-19395-2). The authors offer Bible-based approaches, activities, and resources for rearing 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). Wilde, a sixth-generation funeral director, reflects on grief, the afterlife, and how our ancestors live on in 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 for even the busiest parents to involve their families in caregiving and working for justice in their daily lives.
Russia’s Social Gospel: 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 the ways that Orthodox church pastors’ roles shifted with the end of the czars, the rise of communism, and the modernization of Russia.
Yoga for Times of Change: Practices and Meditations for Moving Through Stress, Anxiety, Grief, and Life’s Transitions by Nina Zolotow (Shambhala, $24.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-61180-928-2). Zolotow features yoga poses, breathing practices, relaxation, mantras, and meditation techniques for finding strength and support.
May 26
Gaslighted by God: Reconstructing a Disillusioned Faith by Tiffany Yecke Brooks (Eerdmans, $22.99, ISBN 978-0-8028-7868-7). Brooks addresses readers who feel damaged by fundamentalist Christianity, highlighting ways scripture shows the complexity of God and how faith can withstand doubt.
May 31
Do I Stay 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 Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened by Bill McKibben (Holt, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-2508-2360-1). McKibben, founder of the climate activism nonprofit 350.org and one of the earlier voices in Christian environmentalism, looks at the nation’s trends toward overconsumption, racism, and religious conflicts.
Little Prayers for Ordinary Days (IVP, $15, ISBN 978-1-5140-0339-8 by Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren, and authors and musicians Flo Paris Oakes and Katy Bowser Hutson. The authors present ways to weave liturgy and prayer into Christian family life.
Soul Doctoring by Gayle Madeleine Randall (Open Books, $20 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-9568-9705-0). Physician and shaman Randall draws on Western and Eastern medicine to discuss healthcare in today’s environmental conditions.
Fiction
May 3
Brisbane by Eugene Vodolazkin, trans. by Marian Schwartz (Plough, $26.95, ISBN 978-1-6360-8045-1). A disabled guitarist finds purpose in mentoring a teen musician who has cancer.
The Sweet Life by Suzanne Woods Fisher (Revell, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-8007-3947-8). In Fisher’s new series, set in Cape Cod, a jilted bride and her troubled mother who open an ice cream shop must turn to the should-have-been groom for help.
What Remains True by Nancy Naigle (WaterBrook, $16 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-5931-9361-7). Two people with secrets—a divorcée and a rodeo star—each try to make peace with the past as they restart their lives in a quaint North Carolina town.
May 24
Potiphar’s Wife by Mesu Andrews (WaterBrook, $16 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-5931-9376-1). Andrews turns to the Genesis story in which Joseph is imprisoned on false charges after he spurns the advances of his master’s wife. When God rewards his faithfulness, her heart is changed as well.
The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon by Linda MacKillop (Kregel, $15.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-8254-4732-7). An elderly woman whose memory is fading reluctantly moves in with her granddaughter’s family on a rundown farm where everyone tries to break through her shell.
