Memoir Religion

Naghmeh Abedini Panahi lived in constant tension from the irreconcilable realities playing out in her own life, in her family life, in the conduct of others, and on the worldwide stage as she interacted with power brokers and well-known religious leaders. I Didn’t Survive: Emerging Whole After Deception, Persecution, and Hidden Abuse is Naghmeh’s firsthand story, which takes you from war-torn Tehran to the quiet Midwestern U.S. to the halls of power in Washington D.C.

John Henry Newman was an influential figure in the Church of England who shocked the Anglican community in 1843 when he joined the Roman Catholic Church. Newman's spiritual autobiography, Apologia Pro Vita Sua, is a classic of English literature. Besides serving as an eloquent response to his critics, it also explores the nature of Christianity and its place in the world. Newman’s work The Idea of a University covers topics such as the character of the academic community, the place of religion and moral values in the university milieu, and more.

Philip K. Dick was a visionary writer. From post-apocalyptic San Francisco to Nazi-occupied America, his strange alternative futures have transfixed the world. But his life was every bit as unusual as his fiction. A Life of Philip K Dick opens a window into PKD's unique mind. Written with close cooperation with two of his ex-wives and a number of his friends, we are taken through his five marriages, his periods living in squalor, and his souring literary success. We are also given unparalleled insight into his transcendental experiences.

The first definitive biography of Moses Maimonides, one of the most influential intellects in all of human history, illuminates his life as a philosopher, physician, and lawgiver. Recalling such bestsellers as David McCullough's John Adams and Walter Isaacson's Einstein, Maimonides is a biography on a grand scale, brilliantly explicating one man's life against the background of his time.

In Why I Stand, Jonathan Isaac shares the journey of how—through a series of divine connections and a willingness to follow Christ—his fear and insecurity-driven life was transformed into one of confidence and purpose. From his childhood in the Bronx to his high school years in Florida, from rail-skinny freshman at FSU to top draft pick in the NBA, Jonathan uses his life story to illuminate the freedom and peace found in the love of Jesus Christ.

God Owns My Business is more than an audiobook about a successful businessman. It is the chronicle of how an average man can, with God's guidance and a willing heart, succeed in any endeavor. They said it couldn’t be done, but formally and legally, business owner Stanley Tam made God the owner of his business. Learn what happens when a man gives his business - literally - to God, and be inspired to steward your whole life for God's honor.

Amy Bruni, co-star of Kindred Spirits and one of the world's leading paranormal investigators, has learned a lot about ghosts over her years of research and first-hand experience. Now, in Life with the Afterlife, she shares the insight she has gleaned and how it has shaped her unique approach to interacting with the spirits of the dead and those who encounter them.

In 2012, Dr. Karen King, a star religion professor at Harvard, announced a breathtaking discovery just steps from the Vatican: she’d found an ancient scrap of papyrus in which Jesus calls Mary Magdalene “my wife”. The mysterious manuscript, which King provocatively titled “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife”, had the power to topple the Roman Catholic Church. It threatened not just the all-male priesthood, but centuries of sacred teachings on marriage, sex, and women’s leadership, much of it premised on the hallowed tradition of a celibate Jesus.

Through his fiction, essays, poems, and art, Kahlil Gibran inspired a devoted international following and transformed modern Arabic literature. In this book, Joseph P. Ghougassian brings together the philosophical elements present across Gibran’s diverse writings, including his best-selling work The Prophet, as well as other significant works such as The Broken Wings, which tells the story of doomed young lovers, and the collection of aphorisms in Sand and Foam.

It is 1982 and in the Kingdom Hall we are Jehovah's Witnesses. The state of the world shows us the end is close, and Satan is like a roaring lion, seeking to devour us. Ali Millar is waiting for Armageddon. Born into the Jehovah's Witnesses in a town in the Scottish Borders, her childhood revolves around regular meetings in the Kingdom Hall, where she is haunted by vivid images of the Second Coming, her mind populated by the bodies that will litter the earth upon Jehovah's return. In this frightening, cloistered world, Ali grows older.

In this meditative memoir - a compelling fusion of Barbarian Days and the journals of Thomas Merton - the author of Saltwater Buddha reflects on his "failing toward enlightenment," his continued search to find meaning and a greater understanding of grace in the world’s oceans as well as everyday life. Born to a family of seekers, Jaimal Yogis left home at 16 to surf in Hawaii and join a monastery - an adventure he chronicled in Saltwater Buddha. Now, in his early 20s, his heart is broken and he’s lost his way.

Born and raised in Essex, Maajid Nawaz was recruited into politicised Islam as a teenager. Abandoning his love of hip-hop music, graffiti and girls, he was recruited into Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Liberation Party), where he played a leading and international role in the shaping and dissemination of an aggressive anti-West narrative. While studying for his Arabic and law degree, he travelled around the UK and to Denmark and Pakistan, setting up new cells.

Benedict XVI: A Life offers insight into the young life and rise through the Church’s ranks of a man who would become a hero and a lightning rod for Catholics the world over. Based on countless hours of interviews in Rome with Benedict himself, this two-volume biography is the definitive record of the life of Joseph Ratzinger and the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI. This first volume follows his early life, from his days growing up in Germany and his conscription into the Hitler Youth during WWII to his career as an academic theologian and eventual archbishop of Munich.

John Alexander Dowie (1847-1907) was a Scottish evangelist and “faith healer” who migrated to the United States from Australia in the late 1800s. Dowie was referred to by critics of his time as a “confidence man”, a person who appealed to the confidence of victims using deception to convince or persuade them out of money or into submission. In the case of Dowie’s Christian Catholic Church cult following, commonly referred to as “Zionites” or “Dowieites”, both money and power were gained.

In this provocative tell-all, David Gushee gives an insider's look at the frictions and schisms of evangelical Christianity, based on his experiences that began with becoming a born-again Southern Baptist in 1978 to being kicked out of evangelicalism in 2014 for his stance on LGBT inclusion in the church. But Gushee's religious pilgrimage proves even broader than that, as he leads his listener through his childhood experiences in Roman Catholicism, his difficult days at the liberal Union Seminary in New York, his encounters with the Christian Right, and more. In telling his story, Gushee speaks to the cultural divisions of a generation.

Told by a former high-level member of the Peoples Temple and Jonestown survivor, Seductive Poison is the "truly unforgettable" (Kirkus Reviews) story of how one woman was seduced by one of the most notorious cults in recent memory and how she found her way back to sanity.

An epic adventure full of incredible characters, death-defying athletic achievement, and bleeding edge science, The Fear Project began with one question: how can we overcome our fears to reach our full potential? Who among us has not been paralyzed by fear? In The Fear Project, award-winning journalist and surfer Jaimal Yogis sets out to better understand fear - why does it so often dominate our lives, what makes it tick, and is there even a way to use it to our advantage?

In this frank and funny memoir, the Tony Award-winning star of stage and screen shares her journey from small-town Oklahoma to big-time Broadway, vamping on what it takes to stand firmly on a foundation of family and faith while wearing a hot pair of Jimmy Choo platform sling-backs.

Do you ever wonder how you woke up one day with all the responsibilities of a grown-up who secretly enjoys buying groceries in bulk, can no longer recognize the tween celebrities on the magazines at checkout, but is still surprised when a Starbucks barista calls you “ma’am” - because your inside self is frozen in time to about 20 years ago? So does Lisa-Jo Baker.

In My Sisters the Saints, author Colleen Carroll Campbell blends her personal narrative of spiritual seeking, trials, stumbles, and breakthroughs with the stories of six women saints who profoundly changed her life: Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Faustina of Poland, Edith Stein of Germany, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Mary of Nazareth. Drawing upon the rich writings and examples of these extraordinary women, the author reveals Christianity's liberating power for women and the relevance of the saints to the lives of contemporary Christians.