Strength in What Remains: A journey of remembrance and forgiveness by Tracy Kidder, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

Amazon Best of the Month, September 2009: Strength in What Remains is an unlikely story about an unreasonable man. Deo was a young medical student who fled the genocidal civil war in Burundi in 1994 for the uncertainty of New York City. Against absurd odds--he arrived with little money and less English and slept in Central Park while delivering groceries for starvation wages--his own ambition and a few kind New Yorkers led him to Columbia University and, beyond that, to medical school and American citizenship. That his rise followed a familiar immigrant's path to success doesn't make it any less remarkable, but what gives Deo's story its particular power is that becoming an American citizen did not erase his connection to Burundi, in either his memory or his dreams for the future. Writing with the same modest but dogged empathy that made his recent Mountains Beyond Mountains (about Deo's colleague and mentor, Dr. Paul Farmer) a modern classic, Tracy Kidder follows Deo back to Burundi, where he recalls the horrors of his narrow escape from the war and begins to build a medical clinic where none had been before. Deo's terrible journey makes his story a hard one to tell; his tirelessly hopeful but clear-eyed efforts make it a gripping and inspiring one to read. --Tom Nissley

In Due Season: A Catholic Life by Paul Wilkes

Starred Review. In an exquisite memoir that often reads like a novel, writer Wilkes (In Mysterious Ways: The Death and Life of a Parish Priest) recounts and reflects upon his life as a Catholic. Although his journey includes a decade as a Protestant and ongoing discomfort with certain aspects of Catholicism, Wilkes deftly mines its imagery and its figures, particularly the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, a major and recurring influence. As Wilkes meanders through a life that begins in a working-class Cleveland neighborhood, he candidly relates his passages of sin and saintliness, including a conversion-in-reverse when he gains fame as a writer and an interlude following the end of his first marriage in which he lives among the poor, caring for society's castoffs. Readers will experience his confusion, the "decaying smell of [his] dying soul" and his triumphs as they wonder if the "it" he seeks will find him and whether he will marry again or become a monk. This is fine, engrossing reading for all who appreciate the struggle inherent in the spiritual quest. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sinners Welcome by Mary Karr

from the back cover

"You could say Karr is a poet who refuses to flinch, even if the landscape of memory and experience resembles a particularly gruesome Bosch canvas, and who, for the most, refuses to be consoled by any comfort art or metaphysics might offer."  --Chicago Review

"Karr stares hard in the face of hard fact . . . These poems rip up the Hallmark card and replace it with the difficult, demanding claims of love in an imperfect world."  Georgia Review

Crossbearer: A Memoir of Faith by Joe Eszterhas

From Publishers Weekly
Followers of provocative screenwriter (Basic Instinct, Flashdance, Showgirls) and author (Hollywood Animal, American Rhapsody) Eszterhas may do a double-take when they see his entertaining new memoir branded with a cross, and a triple-take when they see he means it. In 2001, 56-year-old Eszterhas, recently moved to Ohio with his wife and four sons, was diagnosed with throat cancer, and ordered to end immediately all smoking and drinking-a near-impossible task for the 44-year abuser. Afterward, literally wandering the streets of Vegas, Eszterhas collapses on a curb, opens his heart, and God "saves him"-to no one's greater surprise than his own. As he struggles with his illness, addictions and guilt, Eszterhas draws strength from faith and learns about life with God, revisiting some misadventures from his drug-fueled Hollywood years. Though Eszterhas now claims faith and family the most important things in his life, the book is focused squarely on Eszterhas; early on, he discovers his church's Father Bob was inspired "to follow his dream" by a line in Flashdance, "and now, as a priest, he had inspired me in turn to love God." Still, Eszterhas's journey is inspiring and his tough-guy sense of humor reamins intact, though fans may find it hard to follow the author of The Devil's Guide to Hollywood into the arms of a loving God.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

The Shack by William P. Young

Book  Description
Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever. In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant "The Shack" wrestles with the timeless question, "Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?" The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You'll want everyone you know to read this book!

About the Author
William P. Young was born a Canadian and raised among a stone-age tribe by his missionary parents in the highlands of what was New Guinea. He suffered great loss as a child and young adult, and now enjoys the 'wastefulness of grace' with his family in the Pacific Northwest.

Letters to Sam: A Grandfather's Lessons on Love, Loss and the Gifts of Life by Daniel Gottlieb

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson

Book Description
The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban’s backyard

Anyone who despairs of the individual’s power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan’s treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schools—especially for girls—that offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortenson’s quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit.

About the Author
A former mountaineer and military veteran, Greg Mortenson is the director of the nonprofit Central Asia Institute and spends several months a year establishing schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Co-author David Oliver Relin is an award-winning writer and contributor to Parade and Skiing Magazine.

Jesus Our Redeemer: A Christian Approach to Salvation by Gerald O'Collins

Description
An examination of what Christians mean when they call Jesus their `Redeemer' or `Savior.' Gerald O'Collins draws upon the scriptures, Christian hymns and texts for worship, literature, the visual arts, and other sources to explore his theme.

About the Author
Gerald O'Collins is Professor of Theology at the Gregorian University (Rome).

Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West by Daniel Ladinsky, Editor/Translator

Come Be My Light by Mother Teresa and Brian Kolodiejchuk

Book Description

This historic work reveals the inner spiritual life of one of the most beloved and important religious figures in history.

During her lifelong service to the poorest of the poor, Mother Teresa became an icon of compassion to people of all religions; her extraordinary contributions to the care of the sick, the dying, and thousands of others nobody else was prepared to look after has been recognized and acclaimed throughout the world. Little is known, however, about her own spiritual heights or her struggles. This collection of her writing and reflections, almost all of which have never been made public before, sheds light on Mother Teresa's interior life in a way that reveals the depth and intensity of her holiness for the first time.

Compiled and presented by Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C., who knew Mother Teresa for twenty years and is the postulator for her cause for sainthood and director of the Mother Teresa Center, MOTHER TERESA brings together letters she wrote to her spiritual advisors over decades. A moving chronicle of her spiritual journey—including moments, indeed years, of utter desolation—these letters reveal the secrets she shared only with her closest confidants. She emerges as a classic mystic whose inner life burned with the fire of charity and whose heart was tested and purified by an intense trial of faith, a true dark night of the soul.

Published to coincide with the tenth anniversary of her death, MOTHER TERESA is an intimate portrait of a woman whose life and work continue to be admired by millions of people.

There are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz

The devastating story of brothers Lafayette and Pharoah Rivers, children of the Chicago ghetto, is powerfully told here by Kotlowitz, a Wall Street Journal reporter who first met the boys in 1985 when they were 10 and seven, respectively. Their family includes a mother, a frequently absent father, an older brother and younger triplets. We witness the horrors of growing up in an ill-maintained housing project tyrannized by drug gangs and where murders and shootings frequently occur. Lafayette tries to cope by stifling his emotions and turning himself into an automaton, while Pharoah first attempts to regress into early childhood and then finds a way out by excelling at school. Kotlowitz's affecting report does not have a "neat and tidy ending. . . . It is, instead, about a beginning, the dawning of two lives." These are lives at a crossroads, not totally without hope of triumphing over their origin.

Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc

Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life by Etty Hillesum

YA--Hillesum was in her mid-20s at the time of the Holocaust; her diaries consist mainly of musings about the confusion, perplexities, and struggles all around her and mature into a clear philosophy of love of God and all humanity. Her most intimate thoughts are played out at length, but perseverance results in a rewarding view of humanity. The young woman's letters (the second part of the book) reveal a great deal more detail about the day-to-day life at the transit camp of Westerbork (the last stop before Auschwitz). Here, individual people come into view more clearly, and the horrors and atrocities facing the Jews at that time emerge. That Hillesum could rise above hate and generalization in the midst of such horror and evil reveals a tremendous inner strength. Her courage, determination, and faith reveal her amazing spirit. An inspirational reading experience.

Bunni Union, Geauga West Library, Chesterland, OH

Copyright 1997 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI

“This book is… my personal search ‘for the face of the Lord.’” —Benedict XVI

In this bold, momentous work, the pope—in his first book written as Benedict XVI—seeks to salvage the person of Jesus from recent “popular” depictions and to restore Jesus’ true identity as discovered in the Gospels. Through his brilliance as a theologian and his personal conviction as a believer, the pope shares a rich, compelling, flesh-and-blood portrait of Jesus and incites us to encounter, face-to-face, the central figure of the Christian faith.

From Jesus of Nazareth… “the great question that will be with us throughout this entire book: But what has Jesus really brought, then, if he has not brought world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? What has he brought? The answer is very simple: God. He has brought God! He has brought the God who once gradually unveiled his countenance first to Abraham, then to Moses and the prophets, and then in the wisdom literature—the God who showed his face only in Israel, even though he was also honored among the pagans in various shadowy guises. It is this God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the true God, whom he has brought to the peoples of the earth. He has brought God, and now we know his face, now we can call upon him. Now we know the path that we human beings have to take in this world. Jesus has brought God and with God the truth about where we are going and where we come from: faith, hope, and love.”

The Unburdened Heart: 5 Keys to Forgiveness and Freedom by Mariah Burton Nelson

Having written thoughtfully and persuasively on women, competition and American sports culture, Nelson now detours out of sports writing; yet her latest book emerges from her previous writing as well. The lengthy process of coming to terms with having been sexually abused as a teenager by a coach and the larger phenomenon of coach/athlete abuse that she discussed in The Stronger Women Get, The More Men Love Football have led her to write this accomplished and engaging book about forgiving others. The book is constructed around what Nelson calls the "five keys" of forgiveness: awareness, validation, compassion, humility and self-forgiveness. Woven into Nelson's own story and her cultural and intellectual analysis of forgiveness are the often inspiring stories of people who have forgiven (or sought to forgive) both unimaginable crimes and everyday betrayalsAsuch as rape, torture, the murder of children, adultery and the abuse of authorityAand the peace and strength they seem to find. Whether it is entirely in everyone's interest to become a forgiving person is a question Nelson acknowledges, if gingerly and without resolution. She also acknowledges that forgiveness is a complicated, messy, never-ending business, and that victims do not always shine with innocence. Yet in seeking to apply her simple rules of forgiveness to all things significant and insignificant, Nelson sometimes minimizes her message. As with so many self-help books, while the person who is most completely served by the book is probably the writer, most people will recognize at least a little of themselves in this considered and eloquent volume. (June)

Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The Strangest Way: Walking the Christian Path by Robert Barron

In "The Strangest Way: Walking the Christian Path," Robert Barron argues for a Christianity rooted in spiritual praxis, not abstraction. Barron believes that Christian spirituality - traditionally expressed in movement, practice, and apprenticeship - has been worn thin by accommodation to modernity and become a faint echo of secular culture or a privatized set of convictions. He regards the deculturalization of Christianity as beginning in the subjectivity, rationalism, and suspiciousness of Cartesian philosophy. This cultural mindset was in turn taken up by Christian apologists like Schleiermacher, Tillich, and Rahner who reduced Christianity to something best understood as interior, subjective experience.

The antidote to this development, Barron believes, is a return to spiritual practices that celebrate the playful, embodied, patient, and irreducibly complex working of the mind. According to Barron, we must "plow, climb, will, act, decide, push our way" to insight. To embrace Christianity as a world and a form of life, Barron delineates three paths of spiritual practice. The first involves "finding the center" and is achieved by prayer, pilgrimage, use of religious articles, and fasting. The second, "knowing you're a sinner," is walked by means of confession, truth-telling, and forgiveness. The third, "realizing that life is not about you," is discovered through discernment, works of mercy, nonviolence, and liturgy.

Stewardship: Choosing Service over Self-Interest by Peter Block

Block (The Empowered Manager), a professional in organizational training, runs riot with assumptions about human nature. Reaching for the stars, he constructs a productive business/industry model under which increasingly empowered employee/workers establish a new category of partnership and accountability that will render traditional management hierarchies almost obsolete. In simple terms (not notably indulged in here), sales and service personnel will so promote the interests of customers, distributors and production workforce that overpaid executives will forgo wealth and power, re-address priorities and bend moral attitudes to this end as stewards of the common good. Though there will still, admits Block, be a place for bosses, their role will radically change when the subordinate becomes "the customer of the boss."

Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton

In 1941, a brilliant, good-looking young man decided to give up a promising literary career in New York to enter a monastery in Kentucky, from where he proceeded to become one of the most influential writers of this century. Talk about losing your life in order to find it. Thomas Merton's first book, The Seven Storey Mountain, describes his early doubts, his conversion to a Catholic faith of extreme certainty, and his decision to take life vows as a Trappist. Although his conversionary piety sometimes falls into sticky-sweet abstractions, Merton's autobiographical reflections are mostly wise, humble, and concrete. The best reason to read The Seven Storey Mountain, however, may be the one Merton provided in his introduction to its Japanese translation: "I seek to speak to you, in some way, as your own self. Who can tell what this may mean? I myself do not know, but if you listen, things will be said that are perhaps not written in this book. And this will be due not to me but to the One who lives and speaks in both." --Michael Joseph Gross

The Saints Guide to Happiness by Robert Ellsberg

Going beyond traditional notions of personal growth, success, and happiness, this charming group of biographies shows how living the life of the spirit is the only path to true happiness. The stories, all beautifully told, show how the Church's venerated icons lived in accordance with God and the universe, carrying out authentic lives that insulated them from the negative influences of their immediate cultures and their false rewards. With tempered compassion, these lives convince us that suffering is an acceptable part of our journey toward fulfilling the deepest dimension of our humanity--our destiny according to God's will. A quiet, profoundly moving tribute to the lives and values that shape what Catholics believe is true happiness.

T.W. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

The Pearl Diver by Jeff Talarigo

This unusual debut novel set in 1940s postwar Japan renders brutality and intolerance in quiet, lyrical prose. When a 19-year-old pearl diver, the youngest of a crew working the Seto Inland Sea, discovers she is sick with leprosy, she is banished to Nagashima, an island leprosarium, where she is told to change her name and forget her past. Nagashima is its own kind of civilization, where the renamed "Miss Fuji" must care for the sicker patients, which includes helping the island doctors perform forced, often late-term abortions. Treated with drugs that make her isolation unnecessary, Miss Fuji remains healthy ("she has only the two spots on her body.... Medals or curses, she isn't sure how to wear them"), but she is still not permitted to leave and remains a captive for most of her life. The novel is divided into three sections, with the middle (and by far most substantial) section revealing its story through artifacts, as each object evokes a haunting, smaller story. At times the characters are drawn as artifacts themselves, with strained, wooden dialogue ("You deserve to be with all these freaks here." "There are no freaks here, only people who are sick"). As if to mimic his protagonist's bracketed sense of time, Talarigo details minute scenes and interactions, then jumps decades ahead. It's an effect that de-emphasizes his dramatic subject matter and allows the emotional consequences of the situation to surface in unexpected ways, as when Miss Fuji finds solace in watching children playing on a nearby shore. Drawing from actual medical history, Talarigo succeeds in telling a compelling story whose strength is its elegant simplicity.

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 

Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel by Thomas Keating

First published in 1986 and in print--and immensely popular--ever since, Open Mind, Open Heart, by the Trappist Monk Thomas Keating, remains one of the best introductions to a specifically Christian form of meditation. Father Keating gives the reader an overview of what contemplative prayer both is and isn't; he discusses the history of contemplative prayer in the Christian tradition and then explores step by step the process of Centering Prayer, briefly exploring its origins in the ancient church and then demonstrating its use as "a sign of one's intention" to surrender to God. Each chapter concludes with questions and answers that provide useful information in an informal context. Here in particular we get a sense of Keating's clarity--and his sense of humor. For example, in response to a question about the sudden experience of happiness in prayer, Keating responds, "You should not take prayer too seriously. There is something playful about God. You only have to look at a penguin ... to realize that He likes to play little jokes on creatures." --Doug Thorpe for Amazon.com

My Life with the Saints by James Martin

It is one thing to read the lives of the saints, quite another to read about somebody who lives with the saints, who thinks about, researches, and calls upon certain saints regularly. Such a person is, today, a rarity. Such a person is GE-exec-turned-Jesuit Martin, associate editor of the national Catholic weekly America, who details his introduction to and relationship with more than a dozen of his favorite haloed heroes in this book. They include Jude, patron saint of lost causes, whom Martin refers to as "the saint of the sock drawer" because that's where, when a young man, Martin kept a statuette of Jude; Ignatius Loyola, who inspired Martin to look for God in his daily life; and St. Joseph, whose quiet service to Christ motivates Martin. With wit and candor, Martin brings those and his other seemingly distant role models down to earth, citing instances from their biographies and, with deepest effectiveness, revealing his personal connection to each and how each has assisted his life. Donna Chavez

Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza

Immaculee Ilibagiza grew up in a country she loved, surrounded by a family she cherished. But in 1994 her idyllic world was ripped apart as Rwanda descended into a bloody genocide. Immaculee’s family was brutally murdered during a killing spree that lasted three months and claimed the lives of nearly a million Rwandans.

Incredibly, Immaculee survived the slaughter. For 91 days, she and seven other women huddled silently together in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor while hundreds of machete-wielding killers hunted for them.

It was during those endless hours of unspeakable terror that Immaculee discovered the power of prayer, eventually shedding her fear of death and forging a profound and lasting relationship with God. She emerged from her bathroom hideout having discovered the meaning of truly unconditional love—a love so strong she was able seek out and forgive her family’s killers.

The triumphant story of this remarkable young woman’s journey through the darkness of genocide will inspire anyone whose life has been touched by fear, suffering, and loss.

The Holy Longing: The Search for Christian Spirituality by Ronald Rolheiser

"Long before we do anything explicitly religious at all, we have to do something about the fire that burns within us," writes Ronald Rolheiser. "What we do with that fire, how we channel it, is our spirituality." From the opening chapter, where Rolheiser eloquently compares the burning spiritual fire of Mother Teresa, Janice Joplin, and Princess Diana, readers will be fully engaged in a unique and altogether fascinating discussion of Christian spirituality.

As a regular columnist for the Catholic Herald, Rolheiser has clearly honed his writing skills. Like an eloquent marriage counselor, he deftly tries to reconcile the rift between contemporary spirituality and Christianity. For example, he points to the four pillars that support a healthy marriage of Christianity and spirituality, which are "Private prayer and private morality. Social justice. Mellowness of heart and spirit. Community as a constitutive element of true worship." Building upon these pillars, Rolheiser delves into the more challenging marital tensions with chapters such as "Christ as the Basis for Christian Spirituality" and a "Spirituality of Sexuality." This is an excellent book for any Christian who has longs to create a more holy and lasting spiritual union. --Gail Hudson from Amazon.com

The Gift of Peace by Joseph Cardinal Bernadin

The Gift Of Peace is the final legacy left to us by one of America's most beloved and respected clerics. Preparing The Gift Of Peace was an extraordinary effort which consumed Joseph Cardinal Bernardin's final days, and offers deeply personal reflections about his last three headline-filled years. The Gift Of Peace also reveals the Cardinal's spiritual growth amidst a string of traumatic events: false accusations of sexual abuse; reconciliation a year later with his accuser (who had earlier recanted the charges); a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and surgery; the return of cancer (in his liver); his decision to discontinue chemotherapy and live his remaining days as fully as possible. Even after Cardinal Bernardin relinquished the day-to-day operation of the Archdiocese in his final weeks, he continued to work on The Gift Of Peace. Cardinal Bernardin was known for his gift of reconciliation, and for a "consistent ethic of life" that urged a reverence for life from conception to natural death. In his final years he made a trip to Israel with Jewish leaders; launched the Catholic Common Ground Initiative to heal rifts among America's Catholics; and sent a letter to the Supreme Court urging them not to approve "physician-assisted" suicide. The Gift Of Peace is a worthy testament to the memory of a Christian life amidst contemporary issues and modern day challenges of life in the last years of the 20th century.

Christ the Lord - Out of Egypt by Anne Rice

In crisp, straightforward prose, Rice leaves the gothic behind and explores the mysteries beneath the childhood of Jesus. At age seven, the boy and his family leave Egypt to return to their home. They find themselves caught in a revolution after the death of the first King Herod, ruler of the portion of the Roman Empire that includes Israel. Although the historical and cultural details are authentic and well done, it is the character of Jesus that drives this novel. He feels like a typical seven-year-old, but he's also suddenly discovering abilities that no one else possesses. He brings clay birds to life, makes snow fall, and even resurrects a dead playmate. Stunned by these odd happenings, he turns to Joseph and Mary for answers. When they are not forthcoming, he's forced to hunt out clues through local legends, rumors, and a strange spirit that taunts him in his dreams. The story is told from Jesus's point of view, and the strength of the book weighs heavily on Rice's ability to make him believable both as a child and as the son of God; she does a winning job. The wisdom of all things religious fills Jesus completely, but he's naive about day-to-day events: he can't understand why a young girl he used to play with prefers at age 12 to learn about weaving and rearing children.

"This new direction for Rice is both bold and reverent, and is bound to please fans and newcomers alike..."?Matthew L. Moffett, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Changing the Face of Hunger by Tony Hall

0As a Congressman, Tony Hall was reluctant to wear his faith on his sleeve. But during a prayer meeting on Capitol Hill one day a friend asked him, "Tony, don't you think it's time you brought God into your workplace?" He knew his friend was right. If he was to be true to the faith he professed, he must find a way to bring God into the political world in which he worked.

He found the answer to this dilemma in one of the most awful places he's ever visited-Ethiopia. He realized, as he watched a doctor combing the crowds of starving Africans looking for a half-dozen whose lives he could save, that he would travel among the hungry and bring their needs to the attention of his colleagues in Washington. He even took the step of going on a much-publicized 22-day fast to call for attention to these issues.

Years later, and after traveling to more than 100 countries, Tony Hall has seen it all. He's seen desperation, honor, starvation, redemption, and hope. He's seen the dramatic stories of people around the world who are willing to make their lives count. From the dark corners of a political prison in Romania to the barren landscape of famine-stricken Africa, people are suffering and we can help