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

From the Catholic Book Publishers Association:

HARDCOVERS

1. Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism.
George Weigel. Doubleday

2. The Dream Manager
Matthew Kelly. Beacon Publishing

3. Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light
Mother Teresa with Brian Kolodiejchuk. Doubleday

4. Celebration of Discipline, 25th Anniversary Edition
Richard Foster. HarperOne

5. Technology Tools for Your Ministry
Tim Welch. Twenty-Third Publications

6. Rediscovering Catholicism
Matthew Kelly. Beacon Publishing

7. Jesus of Nazareth
Pope Benedict XVI. Doubleday

8. The Rhythm of Life
Matthew Kelly. Beacon/Fireside

9. Simply Christian
N.T. Wright. HarperOne

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

PAPERBACKS

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

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

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

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

5. The Cross, Our Only Hope
A. Gawrych & K. Grove. Ava Maria Press

6. The Only Necessary Thing
Henri J.M. Nouwen. Crossroad

7. The Complete C.S. Lewis Classics
C.S. Lewis. HarperOne

8. On Christian Hope
Pope Benedict XVI. USCCB Publishing

9. Life of the Beloved
Henri J.M. Nouwen. Crossroad

10. The Handbook for Today’s Catholic
A Redemptorist Pastoral Publication. Liguori

Missed the Sunday book reviews? Catch up here.

More books are sold online than any other product and online books sales are booming, according to a Nielsen Online report. 41 percent of internet users in 48 countries had bought books online, up from 34 percent two years ago.

The biggest increases occurred in China, India, and other developing nations. Here are the top ten countries by percentage of internet users buying books online. (The U.S. had 54 million online book buyers, but that was only 38 percent of internet users.)

1. South Korea - 58%
2. Germany - 55%
3. Austria - 54%
4. Vietnam - 54%
5. Brazil - 51%
6. Egypt - 49%
7. China - 48%
8. India - 46%
9. Taiwan - 45%
10. UK - 45%

The Catholic Digest has published a fascinating interview with Fr. Jim Martin, SJ, about his new book A Jesuit Off-Broadway. The book tells the story of the author’s involvement with the theater troupe that produced the play The Last Days of Judas Iscariot.

The Digest also interviewed actors and the playwright, Stephen Adley Guirgis, who said this about his play:

I do think that the idea in the play that’s borrowed from a lot of Christian philosophers is true: that we’re responsible for our own salvation. In the play it’s like Jesus is right there, and I think Jesus is right there for everyone all the time, but you just have to move an inch. And that can be difficult to do, but I don’t think He goes away. I think even if hell, if you flinch, you wake up in heaven.

Seth Godin (him again) has a good post on the dangers of dumbing down.

When you dumb stuff down, you know what you get?

Dumb customers.

And (I’m generalizing here) dumb customers don’t spend as much, don’t talk as much, don’t blog as much, don’t vote as much and don’t evangelize as much. In other words, they’re the worst ones to end up with.

I’ll take the smart customers/readers/prospects every time, please.

Seth Godin has some thoughts about titling books (and other things too). You can be descriptive. You can be clever. Or there’s another alternative: “The third approach is to pick a name that gets talked about. To create a phrase that you hope will enter the vocabulary. . . . It doesn’t always work, but when it does, you sell ten books, not one.”

Lake Superior State University in Michigan has released its annual list of words “banished from the Queen’s English for misuse, overuse and general uselessness.” On the list: sweet (”It is annoying when young children use it and have no idea why, but it really sounds stupid coming from the mouths of adults”); post 9/11 (”You’d think the United States didn’t have jet fighters, nuclear bombs, and secret agents, let alone electricity, ‘pre-9/11′”); and organic (”Things have gone too far when they begin marketing T-shirts as organic”).

My favorite is the ubiquitous phrase it is what it is. Said one critic: “It means absolutely nothing and is mostly a cop out or a way to avoid answering a question in a way that might require genuine thought or insight. Listen to an interview with some coach or athlete in big-time sports and you’ll inevitably hear it.”

The full list is here.