June Publication
Model, actress and entrepreneur Kathy Ireland proves that she's not just another pretty face in Powerful Inspirations: Eight Lessons That Will Change Your Life. The self-help lessons presented here—cultivate strong families, understand your own worth, save part of your income, etc.—may be prosaic, but Ireland salvages the book with down-to-earth personal anecdotes. This book will be most appreciated by conservative Christian women, since Ireland often speaks to women directly and peppers the chapters with discussions of her faith in God and the rationale underlying her pro-life activism. (Doubleday, $19.95 224p ISBN 0-385-50307-5)
Pagan Prayers and More
Billing itself as the "one and only collection of prayers for Pagans of any tradition," Ceisiwr Serith's A Book of Pagan Prayer includes prayers to Celtic, Egyptian, Zoroastrian and other deities. It is organized thematically, making it convenient to use if one is seeking prayers for specific occasions, seasons, times of day, meals or milestones. (Red Wheel/Weiser, $19.95 paper 256p ISBN 1-57863-255-2; June)
Move over, teen witch... and let Grandma show you how it's done! Billed as "the first-ever book of spells for women of a certain age," The Old Girls' Book of Spells: The Real Meaning of Menopause, Sex, Car Keys, and Other Important Stuff About Magic is a fun and practical guide to witchcraft for mature women. Here, Cal Garrison offers the usual self-help spells for getting out of a traffic ticket or bringing more money into your life, as well as remedies for hot flashes, a recipe for "herbal viagra" and spells for keeping memory sharp. (Red Wheel/Weiser, $15 paper 192p ISBN 1-59003-018-4; June)
Religion in the Bedroom
For such a short book, Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception packs some serious punches. Authors Sam and Bethany Torode argue that all married Christians, not just Roman Catholics, need to seriously examine the widespread usage of contraception, which they feel is against God's plan for creation. ("Pregnancy is not a disease," they assert. "Why vaccinate against it?") While supporting Natural Family Planning, which they define as "informed abstinence," they also make a particularly uncompromising case for stay-at-home moms, which will probably irritate many readers. More controversially, they argue that "a culture that worships sex without procreation will sacrifice its children" through abortion, claiming that America's increasing permissiveness about legalizing contraception in the 1960s led inexorably to Roe v. Wade in the 1970s. While it's good to see some ecumenical diversity in the contraception debate, some of the basic arguments of this book are problematic. (Eerdmans, $12 paper 144p ISBN 0-8028-3973-8; May)
Esoteric Religion
Although Shambhala usually publishes books on Eastern religions, particularly Buddhism, The Book of Mystical Chapters: Meditations on the Soul's Ascent from the Desert Fathers and Other Early Christian Contemplatives is a rare and well-conceived foray into Christian mysticism. Drawing from 300 short meditations by Christian mystics and contemplatives from the fourth to 11th centuries, John Anthony McGuckin's collection is arranged around themes of practice, theory and gnosis. He cautions that the book "is not meant for a rapid half-hour read-through from cover to cover in one sitting," but is instead designed to be digested slowly and thoughtfully. ($19.95 144p ISBN 1-57062-900-5; May)
Derived from the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, Donald Redford's The Ancient Gods Speak: A Guide to Egyptian Religion offers more than 90 articles explaining various features of ancient Egyptian beliefs, including ideas about death and the afterlife, the role of cultic animals and the pantheon of deities. The tone can be dry at times, and one wishes for more illustrations, but serious readers will learn a great deal about this ancient religion. (Oxford, $30 336p ISBN 0-19-515401-0; May)