Religious Biographies

A Chance to Die is a vibrant portrayal of Amy Carmichael, an Irish missionary and writer who spent fifty-three years in south India without furlough. There she became known as "Amma," or "mother," as she founded the Dohnavur Fellowship, a refuge for underprivileged children. Amy's life of obedience and courage stands as a model for all who claim the name of Christ. She was a woman with desires and dreams, faults and fears, who gave her life unconditionally to serve her Master.

When Anton LaVey burst onto the San Francisco scene right before the Summer of Love, he parlayed his eerie obsessions into a philosophy and lifestyle that capitalized on a New Age rage. With his signature cape, horn-studded hood, and Ming the Merciless beard, LaVey was a media-savvy provocateur who took what he did seriously, but was always in on the joke. From a spooky old Victorian house, he founded the Church of Satan, where young women squirmed nude on the mantel of his ritual chamber as he delivered a doctrine of self-deification and indulgence.

Be inspired by saints like never before in My Life with the Saints by James Martin, SJ. This best-selling memoir of spiritual self-discovery is an homage to the saints who have accompanied Fr. Martin throughout his life. From a lukewarm childhood Catholicism, to the Wharton School of Business, to the executive fast track at General Electric, to the Jesuits, to a media career in Manhattan, Martin has relied on the saints to intervene in and guide his life.

Many know the heroic story of Jim Elliot’s violent death in 1956, killed by a primitive Ecuadorian tribe he was seeking to reach. Many also know the prolific legacy of Elisabeth Elliot, whose influence on generations of believers through print and broadcast testimony continues to resonate. What many don’t know is the remarkable story of how these two stalwart personalities - single-mindedly devoted to pursuing God’s will for their young lives, certain their future callings would require them to sacrifice forever the blessings of marriage - found their hearts intertwined.

Scripture is filled with examples of men and women whom God used late in life, often with great impact—Noah, Abraham, Moses, Elizabeth, and Anna, to name a few. They were ordinary men and women who discovered that the latter years of life can be some of the most rewarding and fulfilling. “For them, growing older wasn’t something to be denied or dreaded;” says Billy Graham, “it was to be embraced as part of God’s plan for their lives.” Billy Graham’s life and ministry have been dedicated to the here and now but always with a happy-ever-after in view.

Banished is an eye-opening, deeply personal account of life inside the cult known as the Westboro Baptist Church, as well as a fascinating story of adaptation and perseverance. Since no organized religion will claim affiliation with the WBC, it's perhaps more accurate to think of them as a cult. Lauren Drain was thrust into that cult at the age of 15, and then spat back out again seven years later. Banished is the story of Lauren's fight to find herself amidst dramatic changes in a world of extremists and a life in exile.

Dr. W. Lee Warren, a practicing brain surgeon, assumed he knew most outcomes for people with glioblastoma, head injuries, and other health-care problems. Yet even as he tried to give patients hope, his own heart would sink as he realized, I've seen the end of you. But it became far more personal when the acclaimed doctor experienced an unimaginable family tragedy. That's when he reached the end of himself. Gripping medical stories serve as the backdrop for a raw, honest look at how we can remain on solid ground when everything goes wrong.

To Love and Be Loved is a firsthand account of Mother Teresa’s last years, and the first book ever to detail her dealings with worldly matters. We see her gracefully navigate the opportunities and challenges of leadership, the perils of celebrity, and the humiliations and triumphs of aging. We also catch her indulging in chocolate ice cream, making jokes about mini-skirts, and telling the president of the United States he’s wrong. Above all, we see her extraordinary devotion to God and to the very poorest of His children.

In Finding God in the Waves, "Science Mike" draws on his personal experience to tell the unlikely story of how science led him back to faith. Among other revelations, we learn what brain scans reveal about what happens when we pray; how fundamentalism affects the psyche; and how God is revealed not only in scripture but in the night sky, in subatomic particles, and in us.

George Müller was a Christian evangelist and director of the Ashley Down orphanage in Bristol, England. The Life of Trust contains his diary up to 1860, supplemented by autobiographical notes at the start and throughout the text. Mueller founded a number of orphanages in England in the 19th century whilst refusing to personally benefit in any way, fully trusting that God would provide in his financial needs. Throughout his life, he relied on God’s goodness in order to feed, clothe, and house thousands of English children under his care.

Too many people stumble through life with an inaccurate view of who God is. They believe in His existence, but don't know how to relate to Him in a practical and meaningful way. As a result, they fail to achieve anything beyond a superficial relationship with their Creator, and live less-than-fulfilling lives. In Whatever, God, Fr. Anthony Messeh shares his unique story and the lessons he's learned that helped him go from a "don't get too close to God because He might ruin your life" Christian, to a fully devoted "I can't get enough of God in my life" believer.

Galileo Galilei was the foremost scientist of his day. Though he never left Italy, his inventions and discoveries were heralded around the world. His telescopes allowed him to reveal the heavens and enforce the astounding argument that the earth moves around the sun. For this belief, he was brought before the Holy Office of the Inquisition, accused of heresy, and forced to spend his last years under house arrest.

David, King of the Jews, possessed every flaw and failing of which a mortal is capable, yet men and women adored him, and God showered him with many blessings. A charismatic leader, exalted as "a man after God's own heart", he was also capable of deep cunning and bloodthirsty violence.

In this poignant and disturbing memoir of lost innocence, coercion, survival, and healing, Dianne Lake chronicles her years with Charles Manson, revealing for the first time how she became the youngest member of his Family and offering new insights into one of the 20th century's most notorious criminals and life as one of his "girls". While much has been written about Charles Manson, this riveting account from an actual Family member is a chilling portrait that recreates in vivid detail one of the most horrifying chapters in modern American history.

On the day her first book came out—a new translation of Dark Night of the Soul by Saint John of the Cross—Mirabai Starr’s daughter, Jenny, was killed in a car accident. “My spiritual life began the day my daughter died,” writes Mirabai. Even with decades of spiritual practice and a deep immersion in the greatest mystical texts, she found herself utterly unprepared for “my most powerful catalyst for transformation, my fiercest and most compassionate teacher.”

The unlikely and sometimes harrowing journey of an iconic evangelist, known to millions as simply Reverend Ike, will draw you into his remarkable story of rising from extreme poverty and leading millions of poor Blacks to unprecedented financial success, independence, and joyful living by understanding the profound Biblical promises of prosperity.

Born Erik Weisz in Budapest in 1874, Houdini grew up an impoverished Jewish immigrant in the Midwest and became world-famous thanks to talent, industry, and ferocious determination. Nobody knows how Houdini performed some of his dazzling, death-defying tricks, and nobody knows, finally, why he felt compelled to punish and imprison himself over and over again. Tracking the restless Houdini's wide-ranging exploits, acclaimed biographer Adam Begley tells the story of a mystifying man's astonishing career.

In February of 2009, Shannon and Paul Morell were especially eager to bring a new life into the world. After years of infertility and miscarriages, they had, in 2006, finally scrimped and saved enough to have in vitro-fertilization. The result? Two dear daughters had been born, and six precious embryos had been frozen. They counted the days until they could transfer the six remaining embryos. But then the clinic called....

The story of Muhammad is extremely fascinating, and leaves us wondering where the boundaries exist between reality and myth. All of the world's great religions have this trait in common, without exception. But Muhammad's life has a whiff of the fabulist about it that reminds us of the great literary traditions of Islam, more especially of the style of the tales in the Arabian Nights. Everything about Muhammad, from his birth to his death, displays an aura of inevitability and dramatic tension.

In this memoir, Jessica tells the story of leaving her family to move away from a closed religious society that refers to itself as “The Truth.” The church gave her a rulebook for life that separated members of the Truth from the rest of society. Remaining inside the community was Good. Being outside the community—in Satan’s World—was Bad. The Truth keeps close records of all its members who are in Good standing.