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

“Father Urban had preached a great many thrilling sermons on saints who had really asked for the martyr’s crown, but he believed that there were others from whose lives we might learn more that would serve us better in the daily round. What of those who had remained on the scene and got on with the job? The work of the Church, after all, had to be done for the most part by the living. There was too much emphasis on dying for the faith. How about living for the faith?”

–J. F. Powers, Morte D’Urban

Novelist Ron Hansen has been ordained as a deacon in the diocese of San Jose, California. Hansen has written eight novels, including Mariette in Ecstasy and Atticus, two of my favorites, and a ninth novel is on the way. He is a professor of English at Santa Clara University, a Jesuit institution. Hansen told the SCU student newspaper that his deacon vocation is a natural fit with his long-time spiritual interests and volunteer parish and campus work. “I can’t find a difference between praying and imagining — I think they’re kind of uniquely intertwined. Certainly, when people talk about their muse, I think they’re really talking about inspiration from the Holy Spirit.” More here.

My friend Bob Lockwood, a splendid writer and ardent baseball fan, passed along the rumor that the great Hank Aaron is a Catholic convert. Bob hasn’t been able to confirm the story, and I haven’t either. But I posed the question to Google, and came up with this tantalizing bit of evidence.

But perhaps The Imitation of Christ is also especially well suited to the game of baseball. The game is designed to humble the exalted. Failure and defeat are built into every inning. The best hitters make outs 7 out of 10 times at bat. Pitchers do well to give up less than four runs a game. The mood of The Imitation of Christ is decidedly toward the darker side of Catholic spirituality. It says little about setting forth to take bold action in the world, but rather advises the reader to expect adversity and to make the most of it. Hank Aaron’s spiritual reading might seem unusual. But maybe not so unusual, in light of the game he played so well.

Teresa of Avila is “a hot mystic right now,” says Carolyn Myss, the bestselling author, whose new book is about the venerable doctor of the church. Publishers Weekly looks at two new books about Teresa.

The Catholic Book Publishers Association website has a new look.

Go here for a free first chapter of Dawn Eden’s The Thrill of the Chaste.

At the First Things blog, Fr. Edward Oakes, S.J. comments on the recent spate of books by militant atheists.

The Happy Catholic likes Rumer Godden’s classic novel In This House of Brede.

And finally, nominations for the 2007 Catholic blog awards open next week. The awards for 2006 are posted here.

From the Catholic Book Publishers Association:

Hardcovers

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

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

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

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

5. Rediscovering Catholicism
Matthew Kelly. Beacon Publishing

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

7. The Book of Courage
Matthew Kelly. Beacon Publishing/Fireside

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

9. Mother Angelica
Raymond Arroyo. Doubleday

10. Gospels and Acts, The Saint John’s Bible
Donald Jackson. Liturgical Press

Paperbacks

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

2. United States Catholic Catechism for Adults
USCCB Publishing

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

4. Not By Bread Alone: Daily Reflections for Lent 2007
Sherri L. Valee. Liturgical Press

5. The Great Divorce
C.S. Lewis. Harper San Francisco

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

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

8. The Return of the Prodigal Son
Henri J.M. Nouwen. Image

9. Becoming Who You Are
James Martin. HiddenSpring

10. In the Name of Jesus
Henri J.M. Nouwen. Crossroad

Barbara Nicolosi, an author and screenwriter who describes herself as a “happy Catholic,” is one of the more articulate and visible Christians in Hollywood. She’s very blunt. Why did the recent movie “The Nativity” fail at the box office? “That film was a superficial take on the defining mystery of Western Civilization – the Incarnation of God as man. Basically turning this story into a series of Christmas card tableaus was insulting to the people who know the story, and irrelevant to those who don’t.”

In a recent interview she was asked what Hollywood has to offer the Christian audience. Her reply:

Not much right now, for a lot of reasons. But mainly because the art they are making for that audience is coming from people who aren’t believers. It’s a kind of arrogance that the industry doesn’t practice in crafting product for any other group. They wouldn’t dare make a move for the black audience that wasn’t written and directed by black filmmakers. Or could you imagine a hospital show in which no doctors were consulted? But they will continually craft TV shows like Book of Daniel and Revelation and movies like Constantine and Kingdom of Heaven which are all about Christians, and yet no happy Christian was involved in the production process. There is a snotty influential crowd in Hollywood that doesn’t want to work with Christians because they think they know how we vote politically.

Read the whole thing.

Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber
along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing
their colored clothes, cap and bells.
                                  And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng’s clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed One, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.

–Denise Levertov

Christianity Today interviews N.T. Wright, Anglican bishop, New Testament scholar, and popular spiritual author. A friend of mine and I are reading and discussing Wright’s Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, a most impressive book, whose title deliberately echoes C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. Says Wright: “We’re talking about Jesus as the Lord of the world—not the Lord of people’s private spiritual interiority only, but of what they do with their money, with their homes, with the wealth of nations, and with the planet.”

Speaking of Lewis, the Washington Post reviews the latest volume of his collected letters — the final volume. This one sheds light on both Aslan and Joy Davidman.

Finally, about a month before pitchers and catchers report to spring training, the Real Live Pastor (aka Gordon Atkinson) writes a lyrical blog post about baseball and Bible study. He and his preacher buddies talk about the Bible while playing catch. It’s like being a kid again:

And then your friend winds up like a spring and then unwinds. You see his arm blur around his body and there is a white circle coming toward you at a terrific speed. But you feel no anxiety because your gloved hand slips forward smoothly and you pluck the ball right out of the air. You’ve caught a thousand balls, and you know you’ll catch this one. There is a sharp pop in the leather of your glove that stings a bit, but even the sting is nice in its own way.

I think I’ll ask my friend if he wants to discuss Simply Christian while playing catch. Maybe this idea will catch on at my parish. It’s hard to get adults, especially men, to turn out for parish events. They might if the Lent event features small group catch . . .

The bestselling Catholic book of 2007 will surely be Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI, which Doubleday will publish in the spring. The preface for the book has been released (go here for a translation), and it’s clear that the pope is weighing in on the great debate about the “historical Jesus” that has been going on since the nineteenth century. The historical-critical methodology has yielded many insights into scripture, but the skeptical “hermeneutic of suspicion” has also led some scholars to claim that little can be known about the historical figure of Jesus. The gap has been filled by speculative “reconstructions” of who Jesus was or might have been. Benedict wryly notes the contradictory results: “from the revolutionary enemy of the Romans who opposed the established power and naturally failed, to the meek moralist who permitted everything and inexplicably ended up causing his own ruin.” But Benedict also writes that the notion that very little can be known for sure about Jesus “has deeply penetrated the general consciousness of Christianity.”

Benedict’s approach, he says, begins with trust in the gospels and a conviction of faith. He writes:

I wanted to make an effort to present the Jesus of the Gospels as the real Jesus, as the “historical Jesus” in the real sense of the expression.

I am convinced – and I hope that I can also make the reader aware of this – that this figure is much more logical, and from the historical point of view also more understandable, than the reconstructions we have had to confront in recent decades.

I maintain that this very Jesus – the Jesus of the Gospels – is an historically sensible and convincing figure. His crucifixion and the impact that he had can only be explained if something extraordinary happened, if the figure and the words of Jesus radically exceeded the hopes and expectations of his time.

Heady stuff. This is an academic debate with many implications for the daily lives of ordinary people. Reserve your copy of Jesus of Nazareth now, and get ready for lots of debate and commentary this year about the person of Jesus.

“If you don’t sell your books, you won’t be published for long,” writer Josie Brown tells fellow authors. She suggests five ways that authors can get their books to readers. Number Five: Do Everything You Can to Drive Online Sales:

The cheapest, most efficient, most impactful tool you have is your website. It is the first and foremost place where readers will find out about you and your books.

Make sure that they can read an excerpt on your site, as well as the love letters you’ve received from your fans, and the reviews you’ve garnered. (And every review counts, so post it!)

Most importantly, link your site to as many online booksellers as you can, specifically to the subpage that features your book.

The publishing industry blogger Booksquare thinks that Apple’s new iPhone might be the e-book reader that the world has been waiting for.

With its “smart” orientation features, the iPhone could usher in the mass market e-book era. . . . Think about it. Text, high resolution graphics, wireless Internet access, single device. . . .The iPhone, more than any device, fulfills the promise of the future. It is the one thing that the publishing industry has desired and needed.

I remain skeptical. It’s hard to improve on ink on dead trees between covers for portability, value, and ease of use. But a lot of smart people are trying.

There’s news today about two publishers that both have roots in unusual religious communities. Publishers Weekly spotlights Paracelete Press, a publisher that is an outgrowth of the Community of Jesus, a unique ecumenical community on Cape Cod. Paraclete’s employees are all members of the community, which professes a Benedictine spirituality and includes vowed monks and nuns as well as lay people.

The Society of St. John the Evangelist, an Anglican monastic community, is selling Cowley Publications to Rowman & Littlefield. Cowley will be an imprint of R&L, which acquired Sheed & Ward several years ago.

The Best American Catholic Short Stories has just been published by Sheed & Ward, and it’s an impressive, absorbing book. J.F. Powers, Flannery O’Connor, and other mid-century Catholic masters are here, but so are contemporary writers: Richard Russo, Ron Hansen, Tobias Wolff, Tim Gautreaux, and others. Click here for a list of the contents. The book was edited by Daniel McVeigh and Patricia Schnapp of Siena Heights University. The editors take a stab at the vexed question of how to define “Catholic fiction.” These stories, they say, “spring from a mind familiar with the creed, with the paradox of the Trinity, with belief in the Eucharistic presence, and, perhaps especially, with the crucial tenets of the ‘forgiveness of sins’ and ‘life everlasting.’”

Stephen King and J.K. Rowling are the favored providers of literary “guilty pleasures” to British readers, according to a recent survey. John Grisham and Dan Brown are tied for third place. But columnist Thomas Sutcliffe challenges the whole notion of guilt about reading. “How guilty a pleasure can any book be when the alternative is to power up a PlayStation and run amok through Miami with a chain saw?” he asks.

The St. Louis Review profiles Fr. Matt Kessler, the new publisher of Liguori Publications.

More on Amazon’s pricing. Turns out that the online bookseller has a secret 30-day price guarantee.

The secrets of the book publicist’s trade are revealed here.

The Happy Catholic reviews a book on Mother Teresa.

Finally, though the feast has has passed, here are Christmas reading suggestions from the editors of America.

The Edge Foundation asked 160 scientists, writers, and other intellectuals to describe what they are optimistic about. You’ll find their answers here. I was delighted by this response from historian Walter Isaacson:

I am very optimistic about print as a technology. Words on paper are a wonderful information storage, retrieval, distribution, and consumer product. . . . Imagine if we had been getting our information delivered digitally to our screens for the past 400 years. Then some modern Gutenberg had come up with a technology that was able to transfer these words and pictures onto pages that could be delivered to our doorstep, and we could take them to the backyard, the bath, or the bus. We would be thrilled with this technological leap forward, and we would predict that someday it might replace the internet.

“A Princeton Maverick Succumbs to a Cultural Shift” is the poignant headline on a Times piece today about the closing of Micawber books, a 26-year-old bookstore in Princeton, New Jersey. The piece reprises an old theme: charming independent bookseller is buried by competition from chain bookstores, new media, and mall retailing. But maybe Logan Fox, Micawber’s quirky owner, is out of business because he didn’t serve his customers very well. He proudly admits that he stayed away from Barnes & Noble, Borders, and other competing stores. He resisted a computerized inventory system for years. He’s offended when employees (and customers?) talk about television programs instead of books.

Fox grandly blames Micawber’s demise on a massive cultural shift: “The old days of browsing, the old days of a person coming in for three or four hours on a Saturday and slowly meandering, making a small pile of books, being very selective, coming away with six or seven gems they wanted, are pretty much over.”

Are they? The old days of browsing might be over at Micawber Books, but I’ll bet they’re going strong at Borders’, and B & N’s Princeton stores.

Before Christmas, an LA Times reporter discovered that a book left overnight in his Amazon.com shopping cart mysteriously rose in price. “Was it conceivable that Amazon, seeing the only prospective customer in sight reaching for his wallet, decided to raise the price just a bit?” he wondered. He put some more books in a shopping cart and left them there for a few days. Most of them had risen in price when he checked back. Why? An Amazon spokesman unhelpfully explained that “prices go up, prices go down.” The reporter theorizes that Amazon is embracing “dynamic pricing,” which involves selling identical material for different amounts based on the customer’s willingness to pay.

John Allen is working on a new book that he’s calling “The Upside Down Church” which will describe the trends that are “turning the church on its head.” Before Christmas Allen posted a column in which described 10 “mega-trends” and asked for reader reaction to them. He then wrote another column adding five more trends based on reader response.

All of this is useful to those of us in Catholic publishing and media. Allen is a sharp observer of the Catholic scene. He is also a shrewd participant in the information revolution that is reshaping the Catholic conversation. Inviting people to comment on his book in progress is an example. The “wireless revolution” is one of his mega-trends. He writes: “Today, anyone who can find their way to a Starbucks with a laptop can be their own publisher. The blogosphere is full of Catholic offerings. . . . The Catholic conversation is a wide-open marketplace, and if bishops want to make themselves heard, it has to be by dint of their message rather than their office.”

A quote for the beginng of the new year:

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.”

– W. H. Murray

So get started. Hat tip to 43 Folders.