Some would call it serendipity; others would call the timing a small miracle. A week before September 11, Max Lucado, a pastor and author with more than 25 million copies in print, saw the publication of Traveling Light: Releasing the Burdens You Were Never Intended Bear (#6 on our November hardcover religion list). W Publishing Group's laydown was 250,000 copies, and a 10-city tour was set to begin October 1. It would have been Lucado's second book tour and the first to target the general book market. After September 11, Lucado and his publisher revamped the tour to add prayer events in each city, beginning with New York and D.C. According to W, more than 12,000 people came to hear Lucado on his 12 stops. The publisher has gone back to press; copies in print for the hardcover, Spanish and international editions: 345,000.
With reporting by Dick Donahue.
