People of the Book
A Blog about Book Publishing from a Catholic Perspective

Padre Pio, Solanus Casey, and Andre Bessette were simple men who grew up in very modest circumstances in the nineteenth century. They had little education and served in menial roles in their religious communities. Yet their ministries touched thousands of lives. They are perhaps the greatest wonder-working saints of modern times.

Joel Schorn, a Chicago editor and writer, thinks there is a direct connection between the humility of these men and the extravagant fruit of their ministry. His new book about them is called God’s Doorkeepers. Andre Bessette and Solanus Casey were literally doorkeepers; they were porters at the doors of their religious communities. Padre Pio’s door was the door to his confessional. Miraculous healings of the spirit and body are associated with all three of them. Writes Schorn: “God waits patiently for us, just as Solanus and Andre waited at their porter stations and Pio waited in the confessional. . . . We are all afflicted in some way. If we only turn to God, God will turn to us in a healing way.”

Elliot, a blogger with a taste for science fiction breaks out the religious affiliation of the authors of the top 50 science fiction and fantasy books. Many of them are Christians. Elliot rightly points out that most good science fiction deals with questions of ultimate meaning and can touch people spiritually. My book group read two science fiction books within the last year: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller and Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis. I recently read The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe, a Catholic. It’s a dazzling tale about the painful redemption of a dying far-future earth. A final recommendation: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. It’s a marvelouslly-plotted, psychologically astute story about education, war, and growing up.

Recently we saw how one enterprising Catholic author is using YouTube to promote a new book. Now here’s a Catholic publisher and bookseller who is using the web’s hottest site for Christmas marketing. The publisher is Pauline Books and Media. This video features Sister Julia Mary Darrenkamp talking about her favorite Christmas books. The YouTube embed below is balky, so here is the link in case it doesn’t work.

From the Catholic Book Publishers Association:

HARDCOVERS

1. Celebration of Discipline, 25th Anniversary Edition
Richard Foster. Harper San Francisco

2. Perfectly Yourself: 9 Lessons for Enduring Happiness
Matthew Kelly. Beacon Publishing/Ballantine

3. The Rhythm of Life
Matthew Kelly. Beacon Publishing/Fireside

4. Catechism of the Catholic Church
Doubleday/Our Sunday Visitor/USCCB Publishing

5. The Holy Longing
Ronald Rolheiser. Doubleday

6. My Life With the Saints
James Martin. Loyola Press

7. The Seven Levels of Intimacy
Matthew Kelly. Beacon Publishing/Fireside

8. Finding Sanctuary
Christopher Jamison. Liturgical Press

9. Rediscovering Catholicism
Matthew Kelly. Beacon Publishing

10. Lord, Have Mercy
Scott Hahn. Doubleday

PAPERBACKS

1. Waiting in Joyful Hope 2006: Daily Reflections for Advent and Christmas
Katherine L. Howard. Liturgical Press

2. United States Catholic Catechism for Adults
USCCB Publishing

3. Catechism of the Catholic Church
Doubleday/Our Sunday Visitor/USCCB Publishing

4. Mere Christianity
C.S. Lewis. Harper San Francisco

5. Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church
Libreria Editrice Vaticana, USCCB Publishing

6. The Screwtape Letters
C.S. Lewis. Harper San Francisco

7. A Year of Sundays: Gospel Reflections 2007
C.S. Lewis. Harper San Francisco

8. Handbook for Today’s Catholic
A Redemptorist Pastoral Publication. Liguori Publications

9. The Nativity Story
Rose Picatte. Pauline Books & Media

10. Return of the Prodigal Son
Henri J.M. Nouwen. Doubleday

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

–e.e. cummings

Pope Benedict XVI has decided to publish the first part of a book about Jesus that he has been working on for several years, the Vatican has announced. The book’s title is Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration. It is the first 10 chapters of a larger project, but the Pope says he will publish it now “because I do not know how much time and how much strength I will still be given.” “It is not a long encyclical on Jesus, but a personal presentation of the figure of Jesus by the theologian Joseph Ratzinger,” says Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, head of the Vatican Press Office. The book will be published in March in Italian and German. No English-language publisher has been announced. Read the CNS story here.

Writing in the Times, John Wilson notes the crudely stereotypical portrayal of evangelicals in contemporary fiction:

Sometimes these fictional evangelicals are ominous figures: glassy-eyed pro-lifers hellbent on murdering doctors and bombing abortion clinics, or charismatic psychopaths like the villain in Henning Mankell’s “Before the Frost,” who is mentored by Jim Jones of Jonestown fame. Mostly, though, they are drawn in broadly satiric strokes (see for example the “moaners” of the First Resurrectionist Maritime Assembly for God in Carl Hiaasen’s new novel, “Nature Girl”). Charmless, ignorant, homophobic and either brazenly hypocritical or obnoxiously sincere, they quote Scripture unctuously and have bad sex.

“Darwin,” muses a clueless Pentecostal mother in Kelly Kerney’s novel “Born Again.” “Isn’t that the guy who thinks God is a monkey?”

These inept Christians hardly seem capable of mounting a theocratic coup in America — an alarm sounded in several new non-fiction books, writes Wilson, who edits the Books & Culture journal, published by Christianity Today. He assures his largely secular Times audience that “that such fears are wildly overstated.” But he warns his readers: “If you have raised your offspring to be freethinkers before sending them away to college, you may be horrified to learn that one of them has fallen in with Christians on campus and is lustily singing praise choruses. You may have an evangelical at your table come Thanksgiving. (Your mail carrier may be one of Them already.)”

Wilson’s piece has disappeared behind the Times Select wall, but this satirical blog reprinted it.

Two authors urge other authors to get out there and market their books. “Out there” for Larry James is out there on the road. He offers a detailed primer for successful book signings in bookstores. “Out there” for Josie Brown is cyberspace. “The Internet is quickly usurping mass media’s role as society’s primary culture delivery system,” she writes. “It sure beats the Jacqueline Sussan route: You know, jumping into the car with a map of the country, and going bookstore-to-bookstore, or distributor-to-distributor, to introduce yourself and push your book.”

The internet communities of hobbyists and experts called “wikis” are springing up all over the web, as we recently reported. Now The Wall Street Journal reports on a fascinating extension of the wiki phenomenon that should get the attention of publishers and acquisitions editors everywhere. A community of experts, professors, and business managers are going to write a book collaboratively through a wiki website. When they’re finished, sometime next year, the book will be published in conventional dead-tree fashion by Pearson PLC.

There are lots of issues to be hashed out. How will writers be paid? Who gets credit? How does the editing work? Still, the idea is promising. The title of Pearson’s wiki book is “We Are Smarter than Me.” The Journal says that “it will explore how businesses can use online communities, consumer-generated media such as blogs, and other Web content to help in their marketing, pricing, research and service.” Take a look at the book’s wiki website. It’s likely a peek into our future.

Time magazine has an interesting piece on the influx of young women into women’s religious life. One of them is my Loyola Press colleague and fellow blogger Sr. Julie Vieira, IHM. “”The whole ‘nun’ thing kind of snuck up on me when I wasn’t paying much attention,” she tells Time. Make Julie’s blog, A Nun’s Life, a regular stop.

Every book for sale on Amazon has a sales rank number. It’s a number between 1 and 2.5 million or so and it’s displayed on the book’s page. We’ve all noticed these numbers, and suspected that they mean something, but what they mean is a mystery. The number changes all the time, depending on sales at the moment. It’s easy to manipulate. Now comes Title Z, a clever website that tracks books’ Amazon sales rankings over time. It shows the patterns in the sales. Publishers can use it to look at all their books’ Amazon performance on one page. It can also be used to compare books. It’s Web 2.0.

Vatican journalist Robert Moynihan has produced the book for those looking to get acquainted with the no-longer-new pope. The first 75 pages of Let God’s Light Shine Forth are a short biography, drawing on interviews and conversations Monynihan had with Joseph Ratzinger in the last 15 years. The rest of the book consists of excerpts from his writings and speeches. Moynihan edits these in succinct paragraphs that give the flavor of the pope’s mind. He arranges them thematically in three major sections: His Faith, Today’s World, and The Christian Pilgrim. Benedict is a treat to read. His theological work may be frightfully erudite, but these selections are personal, direct, and clear. Here’s a sample, on “God’s guidance”:

God speaks quietly. But he gives us all kinds of signs. In retrospect, especially, we can see that he has given us a little nudge through a friend, through a book, or through what we see as failure — even through accidents. Life is actually full of these silent indications. If I remain alert then slowly . . . I begin to feel how God is guiding me.

The beloved has gone away.
Always, this is the case.
Each moment turns on its hinge
And loss is there, loss
Announcing itself as an absence.

But that’s because we’re looking
Backward, looking in the wrong
Direction: so desperately clinging
To a last glimpse of the beloved,
As if loss itself is what we love.

And all the time the beloved
Is coming toward us, is arriving
Out of the future, eager to greet us.

–Gregory Orr

The Catholic Book Publishers Association newsletter is up here. Highlight: Catholic publishing veteran Bert Ghezzi is the new senior acquisitions editor for The Word Among Us Press.

Slate looks at the the battle between book publishers and Google over Google’s book scanning project. “Everyone who considers themselves an author or an author’s advocate should take a deep breath and, at least this time, praise Google Print. In the end, it is just a search, not a replacement product.”

Seth Godin examines five misleading marketing cliches. Number Three: “Let’s do a focus group, they’ll decide.”

Paraclete Press is publishing three books on Mary from the Anglican, Catholic, and Protestant evangelical perspectives.

Flannery O’Connor was being disingenuous when she said, “I hate to deliver opinions. On most things I don’t deserve an opinion and on a lot of things I simply don’t have an opinion.” Of course she had opinions. Here are some from her letters (courtesy of Eve Tushnet):

On Spiritual Writers
Almost any spiritual writer ought to wear thin for you. It’s like reading criticism of poetry all the time and not reading the poetry.

On Unbelief
If you feel you can’t believe, you must at least do this: keep an open mind. Keep it open toward faith, keep wanting it, keep asking for it, and leave the rest to God.

On the Communion of Saints
The Communion of Saints has something to do with the fact that the burdens we bear because of someone else, we can also bear for someone else.

Single People
I’m rather glad the single folks, or left-overs as you call us, haven’t been discovered by the Church. Think of the awful oratory that would flow over us.

Opus Dei’s name was besmirched by The Da Vinci Code, but the largely lay Catholic organization has been well served by a couple of books published since Dan Brown’s fantasy thriller. John Allen’s Opus Dei was a thorough and sympathetic account of the organization’s founding, history, and mission, including a look at its missteps and controversial features. Now, Scott Hahn, the biblical theologian and best-selling author, examines its spirituality in Ordinary Work, Extraordinary Grace. It’s an insider’s view; Hahn belongs to Opus Dei. But the book is not about his own spiritual journey. It’s about the rich and challenging spirituality that makes the organization tick.

The essence of the Opus Dei idea is a vision of holiness through ordinary work. According to Hahn, this was quite literally a vision. One day in October, 1928, St. Josemaria Escriva “saw” the Work of God as a path to “sanctification in daily work and in the fulfillment of the Christian’s ordinary duties.” He founded Opus Dei to flesh out this vision. It’s a spirituality for lay people, Christ-centered, biblically-focused, steeped in prayer. It has strong Ignatian resonances. All good things, in my view.

Publishers Weekly has chosen its 100 best books of the year, and two of them were written by friends of mine. PW calls Fr. Jim Martin’s My Life with the Saints an “outstanding and sometimes hilarious memoir.” It praises Vinita Hampton Wright’s novel Dwelling Places as “an authentic portrait of people who do not completely regret their mistakes and are still learning how to accept God’s consolation.” Both books are terrific. If you’d like to sample My Life with the Saints, go here. With a little scrolling you’ll find the Contents page and the first chapter — Fr. Martin’s account of his relationship with St. Jude. Go here for PW’s list of the 100 best books.

I just ran across the Bible Wiki, which invites anyone to login and comment on the text of the Bible. It’s a huge site. Every verse of the Bible has its own page, and is rendered in several English translations as well as Hebrew or Greek. There are links to scholarly resources, including the Catholic Encyclopedia.

Wikis are web pages that anyone can edit. The origin of the word “Wiki” is uncertain, but one theory holds that it’s an acronym for “What I Know Is . . .” Wikis are places on the web where people get together and share what they know. They have become vast repositories of reference information, and a major part of the Web 2.0 phenomenon, which features social media and user-generated content. The Wikipedia encyclopedia now has more than 5 million entries, and it has become an invaluable online reference tool. Go here to learn more about Wikis.

Anybody can upload a video to YouTube and make it available to the world. So why not authors with books to sell? Here is Dawn Eden’s witty promotion for her upcoming book, inspired by Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” no less. Dawn blogs at “The Dawn Patrol.”

Blogger Eric Scheske writes in the NC Register about Catholic bloggers who write about books. This blog gets a mention. I think Eric is on target with this remark: “I know from experience that the blogging and reading combination can put a person in a constant state of mild agitation, as if there’s always something to be done. The poet Wallace Stevens correctly noted that it ‘adds tremendously to the leisure space of life not to pick up a book every time one sits down.’ Catholic bloggers strike me as the non-leisurely type. I have little doubt that they’re picking up a book every time they sit down.”

The Times writes about the rapid growth of book sales in odd places — butcher shops, car washes, clothing boutiques, and other stores that don’t ordinarily sell books. At Simon & Schuster, these “special sales” have grown 50 percent in four years — surpassing sales to independent bookstores. “The point, publishers say, is to follow customers who might not otherwise visit bookstores into the places where they do shop, rather than waiting for customers to show up at bookstores or click on Amazon.com and other online sales sites.”

Why pray to the saints? The indefatigable Jim Martin, SJ, has an answer in a charming piece for All Saints Day. “To doubters I explain it like this: You pray for your friends when they are in need, right? Why wouldn’t the saints, who most likely have more time on their hands, and are presumably more generous than we are, want to do the same?” He quotes this traditional prayer to St. Catherine by a person with a very specific need:

St. Catherine, St. Catherine,
O lend me thy aid.
And grant that I never shall die an old maid.

A husband, St. Catherine,
a good one, St. Catherine.
But anyone’s better than no one, St. Catherine.

A husband, St. Catherine,
young, St. Catherine,
handsome, St. Catherine,
nice, St. Catherine,
soon, St. Catherine!