New and forthcoming biographies delve deep into the lives of people whose righteous anger, theological perspectives, and spiritual joy have impacted millions.
The Gospel According to James Baldwin: What America’s Great Prophet Can Teach Us About Life, Love, and Identity (Orbis, Sept.) by theologian and English professor Gregg Garrett follows Baldwin’s life in America and Europe and explores his focus on “equity, justice, and reconciliation” as dreams worth pursuing, according to the publisher. In bell hooks’ Spiritual Vision: Buddhist, Christian, and Feminist (Fortress, Nov.), author Nadra Nittle shows how the Black feminist, scholar, poet, and critic’s multifaceted religious identity led her to center on love as a force for social change.
Oral Roberts and the Rise of the Prosperity Gospel, out now from Eerdmans, tracks the life and legacy of the Pentecostal preacher who became a force in American Protestant culture by popularizing the idea that God wanted believers to be both spiritually and financially rich. The book is “set within a bigger story about technology, capitalism, and the rise of evangelical identity,” says Eerdmans acquisitions editor Lisa Ann Cockrel.
Another Eerdmans title, Dancing in My Dreams: A Spiritual Biography of Tina Turner (Nov.), by religious studies expert Ralph H. Craig III, traces American religious movements through a biography of Tina Turner, who credited her success to the “wisdom and power” she found in Buddhism. And a third biography coming from the publisher, A Prairie Faith: The Religious Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder by John J. Fry (Feb. 2024), tracks the influence of Christian morality in the life and writings of the storyteller behind the Little House books.
Two more biographies highlight the spiritual legacies of extraordinary people: No Bullet Got Me Yet: the Relentless Faith of Father Kapaun by John Stansifer (Hanover Square, Nov.) is about Emil Kapaun, the Catholic priest who became the most decorated chaplain in U.S. military history, and Being Elisabeth Elliot: A Life by Lucy S.R. Austen (B&H, out now), takes readers through the later years of the missionary and prolific author.
Other forthcoming biographies focus on public figures who consider faith to be the architecture of their lives. Karen Pence, the wife of former vice president Mike Pence, offers an anecdotal account of her evangelical faith, family life, and reliance on God amid the maelstrom of political life in When It’s Your Turn to Serve: Experiencing God’s Grace in His Calling for Your Life (Broadside, Sept.). Do All the Good You Can: How Faith Shaped Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Politics (Univ. of Illinois, Oct.) by religion historian Gary Scott Smith centers on the Methodist religion that shaped the former secretary of state and senator. Elizabeth Cunningham, author of the Maeve Chronicles series of novels and the daughter of an Episcopal priest, makes her nonfiction debut with My Life as a Prayer (Monkfish, Nov.), a memoir about her spiritual practices as an interfaith minister and counselor.
Many forthcoming books are by or about people journeying to find spiritualities that feed their souls. There are skeptics who convert to evangelical faith, such as theoretical physicist Tom Rudelius, who describes his path to belief as intellectual quest for truth in Chasing Proof, Finding Faith: A Young Scientist’s Search for Truth in a World of Uncertainty (Tyndale Refresh, Aug.). Others reach a spiritual sense of self after suffering trauma, such as Tangen Harada Roshi, who survived the dangers of World War II to immerse himself in rigorous Zen training. In the August, Shambhala will publish Throw Yourself into the House of Buddha: The Life and Zen Teachings of Tangen Harada Roshi, which touches on “archetypal experiences—the dark night of the soul, the apprenticeship with a master, the heroine’s journey—that reach across traditions,” says editor Matt Zepelin.
Ronald Olivier, director of chaplains at Mississippi State Penitentiary, was convicted of murder at age 16 and spent 27 years in prison before being released in 2018. He turned his life toward God when he remembered that his mother once told him, “Baby, if you ever have real trouble, the kind that I can’t get you out of, you can always call on Jesus,” he writes in his memoir, 27 Summers (Thomas Nelson, Nov.).
People with untroubled lives rarely write memoirs about faith keeping them afloat, but many authors of forthcoming books detail how they surmounted problems and doubts by turning to God. Zondervan senior acquisitions editor Paul Pastor says cancer survivor and Ironman competitor Jay Hewitt’s memoir I Am Weak, I Am Strong: Building a Resilient Faith for a Resilient Life (Oct.) raises important questions that are especially relevant in these challenging times.
Reconciliation, inspired and guided by faith, is a theme in two memoirs forthcoming from Convergent. Theologian and bestselling author Esau McCaulley describes his life story in How Far to the Promised Land (Sept.). And in the essay collection Everybody Come Alive (out now), Marcie Alvis Walker, known for her @BlackCoffeeWithWhiteFriends Instagram account, writes of dealing with racism, her mother’s mental illness, and her own issues with perfectionism, according to the publisher.
Psychotherapist and former Maryknoll missionary Kathleen Osberger’s book I Surrender: A Memoir of Chile’s Dictatorship, 1975 (Orbis, Aug.) tells of her experience as a teacher in a Catholic grade school during the dictatorship of Augustin Pinochet in the 1970s. Coming in September from Lake Drive, Cradled in the Arms of Compassion: A Spiritual Journey from Trauma to Recovery by theologian and spiritual guide Frank Rogers, a survivor of child abuse and depression, shares how he discovered that a compassionate God can be found even in the worst of circumstances, says publisher David Morris.
My Life of Grace: How I Found Hope and Purpose in Suffering, due from Ave Maria in September, is by Catholic medical clinic director Peter Le. Afflicted with polio as a boy, Le arrived in the U.S. as a Vietnamese boatperson and later dealt with thyroid cancer. Le’s book offers “a major life lesson,” says Ave Maria publisher and CEO Karey Circosta.
Celebrity is no shield from deep pain and struggle, says Damon Reiss, v-p and publisher of W Publishing, a Thomas Nelson imprint. W is bringing out country star Granger Smith’s heartbreaking story of the agony of his toddler child’s death by drowning, Like a River: Finding the Faith and Strength to Move Forward After Loss and Heartache (Aug.), and an account by Olympic world-record track champion Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone of her battle for self-acceptance, Far Beyond Gold: Running from Fear to Faith (Jan. 2024).
A year after country singer, actor, and bestselling author Jana Kramer wrote a book sharing how she and her sports-star husband lived faithfully, she discovered his infidelities and the couple divorced in 2021. Now, Kramer shares The Next Chapter: Making Peace with Hard Memories, Finding Hope All Around Me, and Clearing Space for Good Things to Come (HarperOne Oct.).
But faith also can be a door that swings outward. Several upcoming memoirs by LGBTQ authors feature difficult sagas of fleeing religious views and institutions they found harmful. In Lonnie Mann’s graphic memoir Gaytheist: Coming Out of My Orthodox Childhood (Street Noise, Mar. 2024, co-illustrated with Ryan Gatts), the author-illustrator sketches out the pains of his childhood growing up gay in an observant Jewish home, and describes how he found his way to an atheist identity and same-sex marriage.
Brandon Flanery grew up in a megachurch and even worked as a pastor until he realized he was gay and charted a new life for himself. His memoir, Stumbling: A Sassy Memoir about Coming Out of Evangelicalism, coming in August from Lake Drive, aligns with the experiences of “millions of people who exit the church due to its politics and its treatment of LGBTQ+ people,” says publisher David Morris.
In Out of Focus: My Story of Sexuality, Shame, and Toxic Evangelicalism, coming from Westminster John Knox in October, Amber Cantorna-Wylde, the daughter of an executive with the Christian conservative organization Focus on the Family, writes about being cast out of her family when she came out as gay. “Cantorna-Wylde highlights the through line connecting evangelical teachings to their toxic fruit of not only family estrangement but chronic illness, homelessness, and violence,” says WJK senior acquisitions editor Jessica Miller Kelley.
