The renowned nonfiction annual makes its Penguin debut For more than a decade, Philip Zaleski has collected into a single volume the best spiritual essays and poetry of the year. The Best Spiritual Writing 2010, featuring essays by John Updike and Diane Ackerman, poems from Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney and Pulitzer Prize-winner Louise Glück, and personal reflections by Richard Rodriguez and Leon Wieseltier, is sure to expand on the series' already wide recognition and reach the growing audience of readers searching for unsurpassed spiritual writing. Contributors include: Mary Jo Bang, Jane Hirshfield, Melissa Range, Rick Bass, Paula Huston, Pattiann Rogers, David Berlinski, Pico Iyer, Amanda Shaw, Joseph Bottum, Charles Johnson, Master Sheng Yen, Nicholas Carr, Jon D. Levenson, Floyd Skloot, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Philip Levine, Meir Soloveichik, Billy Collins, Wilfred M. McClay, Richard Wilbur, Chrisi Cox, Richard John Neuhaus, Seamus Heaney, Robert Pinsky

"A trove of well-wrought, luminous, soul-bracing gifts." -Thomas Lynch (on the 2010 edition) With selection chosen from a vast range of journals and magazines, The Best Spiritual Writing 2011 gathers the finest pieces of spiritual writing to appear in American publications during the past year. The collection offers an opportunity to read intimate and thought-provoking work, ranging from poetry to short fiction to memoir to essay, by some of the nation's most esteemed writers, including Rick Bass, Philip Yancey, Terry Teachout, Robert D. Kaplan, and many others. As Phyllis Tickle said of last year's edition, "there is enough here to feed the hungry heart for years to come."

Penguin's yearly offering of outstanding essays and poetry on faith and spirituality. Every year, the acclaimed Best Spiritual Writing series offers readers the opportunity to explore the most intriguing work on spirituality published in the past year. Featuring a splendid and varied selection, The Best Spiritual Writing 2012 is an elegant collection that gathers intimate, thought-provoking work by some of the nation's most esteemed writers, including Philip Yancey, Richard Rodriguez, and Robert Bly. Culled from a wide range of journals and magazines, these spiritual perspectives are expressed in pieces as diverse as the sources from which they've come. A favorite of book clubs, this makes a perfect gift for the holidays or special occasions.

This exploration of the radical, yet ancient, idea that everything and everyone is God will transform how you understand your life and the nature of religion itself. While God is conventionally viewed as an entity separate from us, there are some Jews—Kabbalists, Hasidim, and their modern-day heirs—who assert that God is not separate from us at all. In this nondual view, everyone and everything manifests God. For centuries a closely guarded secret of Kabbalah, nondual Judaism is a radical reorientation of religious life that is increasingly influencing mainstream Judaism today. Writer and scholar Jay Michaelson presents a wide-ranging and compelling explanation of nondual Judaism: what it is, its traditional and contemporary sources, its historical roots and philosophical significance, how it compares to nondual Buddhism and Hinduism, and how it is lived in practice. He explains what this mystical nondual view means in our daily ego-centered lives, for our communities, and for the future of Judaism.

The burgeoning interest in writing and spiritual growth, spurred on by books such as Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way and Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones has helped to establish writing books as a mainstay in the book business. At the same time, spiritual and personal growth books grace bestseller lists across the nation. Perhaps not so surprisingly, there is a cross-fertilization between people who are interested in personal and spiritual growth and those who are interested in writing.In Writing Spiritual Books, Hal Zina Bennett will take the writer by the hand: first, he will help illuminate and focus on the spiritual experience; then Bennett shares tips and secrets on the craft of writing, organization, and style of spiritual books; and finally, he will address the practical aspects of finding an agent and publisher, complete with a resource section.Including both anecdotal and prescriptive material gleaned from the Hal Zina Bennett's work on over 200 successful projects--for both publishers and individual authors - their will be writing exercises, exploratory questions, and other practical guidance, Readers will be taken through the entire process of writing books for the spiritual and personal growth markets.

A new volume of the critically acclaimed spiritual writing series, with an introduction by bestselling author Stephen Prothero Boasting an impressive selection of personal essays, articles, and poems by today's leading luminaries, The Best Spiritual Writing 2013 captures our nation's spiritual pulse and offers readers an opportunity to explore the most nourishing writings on spirituality published in the past year. As in previous editions, Philip Zaleski draws from a wide range of journals and magazines to build an anthology of stimulating works by some of the nation's most esteemed writers such as Adam Gopnik, Edward Hirsch, and Melissa Range. The result is a book, ideal for gift giving, that will appeal to religious thinkers, atheists, and people of all faiths and beliefs.

"By far the most profound thinker of the 19th century" -Ludwig Wittgenstein "Kierkegaard's great contribution to Western philosophy was to assert, or to reassert with Romantic urgency, that, subjectively speaking, each existence is the center of the universe." -John Updike,The New Yorker Harper Perennial Modern Classics presents the rediscovered spiritual writings of Søren Kierkegaard, edited and translated by Oxford theologian George Pattison. Called "the first modernist" byThe Guardian and "the father of existentialism" by the New York Times, Kierkegaard left an indelible imprint on existential writers from Sartre and Camus to Kafka and Derrida. In works like Fear and Trembling, Sickness unto Death, and Either/Or, he by famously articulated that all meaning is rooted in subjective experience-but the devotional essays that Patterson reveals in Spiritual Writings will forever change our understanding of the great philosopher, uncovering the spiritual foundations beneath his secularist philosophy.

Writing the Sacred Journey shows readers how to write about spirituality and the interior life with heart and flair. It helps readers get motivated, generate materials, move swiftly through drafts, and gain confidence and ease in their writing. Writing the Sacred Journey helps readers to uncover and honor the sacred within their own life stories. Elizabeth Andrew, an experienced writing instructor and spiritual director, gently guides readers through the spiritual writing process from concept to finished manuscript. She identifies some of the initial hurdles writers face in describing the interior, spiritual life and offers practical tips about how to overcome them. Writing the Sacred Journey also explores themes that commonly appear in spiritual memoir, as well as the all-important issue of writing as craft. Readers will learn new and practical skills for every stage of the writing process. Sprinkled throughout the book, these thoughtful activities teach readers new writing techniques and avenues into the creative process.

How do you fight despair and learn to meet the world with a loving heart? How do you overcome shame? Stay faithful in spite of failure? No matter where people live or what their circumstances may be, everyone needs boundless, restorative love. Gorgeous and uplifting, Tattoos on the Heart amply demonstrates the impact unconditional love can have on your life. As a pastor working in a neighborhood with the highest concentration of murderous gang activity in Los Angeles, Gregory Boyle created an organization to provide jobs, job training, and encouragement so that young people could work together and learn the mutual respect that comes from collaboration. Tattoos on the Heart is a breathtaking series of parables distilled from his twenty years in the barrio. Arranged by theme and filled with sparkling humor and glowing generosity, these essays offer a stirring look at how full our lives could be if we could find the joy in loving others and in being loved unconditionally. From giant, tattooed Cesar, shopping at JCPenney fresh out of prison, we learn how to feel worthy of God’s love. From ten-year-old Lula we learn the importance of being known and acknowledged. From Pedro we understand the kind of patience necessary to rescue someone from the darkness. In each chapter we benefit from Boyle’s wonderful, hard-earned wisdom. Inspired by faith but applicable to anyone trying to be good, these personal, unflinching stories are full of surprising revelations and observations of the community in which Boyle works and of the many lives he has helped save. Erudite, down-to-earth, and utterly heartening, these essays about universal kinship and redemption are moving examples of the power of unconditional love in difficult times and the importance of fighting despair. With Gregory Boyle’s guidance, we can recognize our own wounds in the broken lives and daunting struggles of the men and women in these parables and learn to find joy in all of the people around us. Tattoos on the Heart reminds us that no life is less valuable than another.

This text provides a unique examination of The Christian Science Monitor, a highly respected, venerable news publication that has survived over a century of changes and challenges. The Christian Science Monitor is one of the world's leading journalistic publications, having won multiple Pulitzer prizes for its reporting. CSM is innovative and forward-thinking as well—it was one of the first newspapers to provide an online copy of its daily reporting in 1996, well before the popularization of the Internet. But just like other publications, The Christian Science Monitor will need to continue to reinvent itself in order to stay relevant and solvent in the face of plummeting readership numbers, corporate takeovers, and a widespread assumption that all of today's news sources are biased and inaccurate. This book provides a thorough discussion of CSM's treatment of sensitive topics like terrorism, international crises, gender issues, and sexual orientation. The paper's attitudes toward ethnicity, ethics, economics, philosophy, and racism are also profiled. The conclusion provides readers with an opportunity to draw upon their new knowledge of The Christian Science Monitor's past to project its direction for the future.