Writing lays bare the soul. All serious writers know that each word reveals something significant about themselves, granting outsiders a glimpse at their most cherished beliefs and foundational convictions. In this series of intimate reflections on life and writing, critically acclaimed and best-selling novelist Bret Lott explores the author's craft through five letters covering a range of fascinating topics, from exploring the value of literary fiction to discussing the humility of Flannery O'Connor. In the final and longest letter, Lott contemplates the death of his father and his struggle to convey his complicated thoughts and inexplicable emotions in words. Intensely personal and yet universally relatable, this powerful collection of essays will encourage and enrich writers and aspiring writers everywhere.

“Every significant religious system stands upon a sacred text. This text is indeed its temple. Inside, its heroes and their history are enshrined. Although leaders of varying degrees of divinity are always involved in the creation of a new sect, they usually have short lives, often come to bad ends, and their influence, diluted by disciples, soon disappears as water does in sand. What the leader leaves behind is Mein Kampf or its equivalent: his testament. Occasionally, by the indolent, an existent text is chosen, or a compilation selected—a golden treasury. From time to time, other writings may be dubbed divine, as though knighted. This is not a simple social thing, however. It is more important than a nation adding to its territories. Any addition to the divine canon will approve, proscribe, or admit new thoughts, new practices, and in consequence elevate different people to positions of privilege and power.”—William H. Gass These essays and panel discussions made up The Writer and Religion Conference held at Washington University in St. Louis. The six essays, all by writers of international stature, were followed by panel discussions, with audience participation.

A heartfelt exploration of faith and love and friendship, What Happened To Sophie Wilder is a beautiful, absorbing work about the redemptive power of storytelling: a literary love story. Charlie Blakeman has just published his first novel, to almost no acclaim. He's living on New York's Washington Square, struggling with his follow-up, and floundering within his pseudointellectual coterie when his college love, Sophie Wilder, returns to his life. Sophie is also struggling, though Charlie isn't sure why, since they've barely spoke, after falling out a decade before. Now Sophie begins to tell Charlie the story of her life since then, particularly the story of the days she spent taking care of a dying man with his own terrible past and of the difficult decision he forced her to make. When she disappears once again, Charlie sets out to discover what happened to Sophie Wilder. Christopher Beha's debut novel explores faith, love, friendship, and, ultimately, the redemptive power of storytelling.

A broad view of the relationship between religion and politics in the US, accepting the mercurial nature of both as they are experienced and described rather than trying to pinpoint any essential inner truths or hair-fine distinctions. Emphasizes how and why political and religious actors choose to participate in the interplay, in the voting booth, Congress, state legislatures, the presidency, the courts, interest groups, and the larger culture. Also provides a historical perspective. Paper edition (unseen), $18.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The author argues that religion has inspired many of man's worst evils: war, prejudice, bigotry, cruelty, race hatred and fear. Without it, man would be free to be God. In this polemic, A.N.Wilson singles out the Pope and the Ayatollah for particular attack.

From the bestselling author of A History of God and The Great Transformation comes a balanced, nuanced understanding of the role religion plays in human life and the trajectory of faith in modern times. Why has God become incredible? Why is it that atheists and theists alike now think and speak about God in a way that veers so profoundly from the thinking of our ancestors? Moving from the Paleolithic Age to the present, Karen Armstrong details the lengths to which humankind has gone to experience a sacred reality that it called God, Brahman, Nirvana, Allah, or Dao. She examines the diminished impulse toward religion in our own time when a significant number of people either want nothing to do with God or question the efficacy of faith. With her trademark depth of knowledge and profound insight, Armstrong elucidates how the changing world has necessarily altered the importance of religion at both societal and individual levels. And she makes a powerful, convincing argument for structuring a faith that speaks to the needs of our dangerously polarized age.

Russell on Religion presents a comprehensive and accessible selection of Bertrand Russell's writing on religion and related topics from the turn of the century to the end of his life. The influence of religion pervades almost all Bertrand Russell's writings from his mathematical treatises to his early fiction. Russell contends with religion as a philosopher, as a historian, as a social critic and as a private individual. The papers in this volume are arranged chronologically for optimum coherence of the development of Russell's thinking and are divided into five main sections: * Personal statements * Religion and Philosophy * Religion and Science * Religion and Morality * Religion and History. Students at all levels will find this a valuable insight into Russell's thought on religion.

Christopher Hitchens, described in the London Observer as “one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time” takes on his biggest subject yet–the increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world. In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, The End Of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.