Inprint - New Books of interest

With the holidays rapidly approaching, gift giving is one of the foremost things on our minds. Books make great gifts. Maybe you'll see something here that's just the thing for someone special on your list.
We wish you a Happy Holiday Season and Peace in the New Year.

The Secret: Unlocking the Source of Joy & Fulfillment, by Michael Berg. (Kabbalah Publishing, $12.95, Hardcover)

Like a jewel that has been painstakingly cut and polished, The Secret reveals life's essence in its most concise and powerful form. Michael Berg begins by showing how our everyday understanding of our purpose in the world is literally backwards. Whenever there is pain in our lives, indeed, whenever there is anything less than complete joy and fulfillment, this basic misunderstanding is the reason.

Using inspiring tales and excerpts from the writings of one of the world's great Kabbalists, Michael Berg describes how he pieced together the secret of life from the encoded wisdom of Kabbalah. Including practical dos and don'ts, he illustrates that fulfillment does not come with getting, it comes with giving. Once we truly understand this we will be on the path towards not only our own happiness but peace and fulfillment for the world.

The Secrets of Jesuit Soupmaking, by Brother Rick Curry, S.J. (Penguin Compass, $18.00, Paperback).

Soup is one of the staple foods in a Jesuit community, and there is almost always a pot simmering on the stove. Brother Rick Curry has been a Jesuit for more that forty years. He has traveled the world, lived in many different communities, and prepared many, many pots of soup. This collection includes recipes for sixty of the most popular, everything from the exotic Roasted Red Pepper Soup to the classic Minestrone Milanese to the hearty Corn Chowder.

But Brother Curry writes about a lot more than soup. He includes stories about his life in the community of Jesuits; the people he's met; the meals he's enjoyed; and the daily practices of patience, reverence, humility, and care that go into making a good soup and a good life.

Hope: A Story of Triumph, by Joel Rothschild. (Hampton Roads, 16.95, Hardcover).

On the morning of April 22, 1986, Joel Rothschild was rushed to the hospital suffering from AIDS-related pneumonia. From that day, his life became a weary and surreal maze of experimental drug trials, support groups, memorial services for lost loved ones, infections, and hospital stays. Through all of this, he refused to succumb to what he saw so many of his peers fall victim to: the stigma of AIDS, the emotional isolation, or worst of all, the final end of suicide.

Instead, he chose to live as simply as possible, continually trying to see beyond fear and self-sabotaging thoughts to what each day brought. He gained hope and strength knowing he'd survived so much loss and physical suffering, growing more confident with each bout of depression or illness he overcame.

In his arduous process to "rejoin the land of the living," Joel realized that physical suffering and pain is a circumstance that will always come to an end. We can choose to escape it, however it is only by meeting this suffering head-on that we will truly see our life as a wondrous existence and know peace. Rothschild's story awakens in us the very hope that is so easy to lose sight of.

The Lakota Way: Stories and Lessons for Living, by Joseph Marshall. (Penquin Compass, $14.00, Paperback).

Native American culture is increasingly recognized for its spiritual depth. The Lakota Way expresses the heart of American Indian philosophy in a way that is both accessible to the non-Indian and true to traditional ways. In The Lakota Way author Joseph Marshall, born and raised on the Rosebud Sioux reservation, articulates the core of Native American philosophy and the qualities that are crucial to the Lakota path to a fulfilling and meaningful life. This wisdom is shared through the Lakotas' stories and their meaning and relevance are explaind through examples from history and everyday life.

Each chapter of The Lakota Way combines traditional stories that demonstrate one of the essential lessons in which the history and philosophical underpinnings of the Lakota are embedded: bravery, fortitude, generosity, wisdom, respect, honor, selflessness, perseverance, love, humility, sacrifice, truth and compassion. For example, the legend of Crazy Horse illuminates a lesson in humility, while the legend of the Deer Woman teaches a lesson on respect. These twelve principals form the cornerstone of The Lakota Way.

Joseph Marshall then discusses how the wisdom of these myths have shaped and guided his own life, and how they can guide ours. He shows us how these lessons can make us wiser in mind, body, spirit, and deed. It offers a fresh outlook for those searching for a new perspective on spirituality and ethical living.

Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing, by Jed McKenna. (Wisefool Press, $21.95, Paperback)

Author, teacher and spiritual master Jed McKenna tells it like it's never been told before. A true American original, Jed succeeds where countless others have failed by reducing this highest of attainments, spiritual enlightenment, to the simplest of terms.

Effectively demystifying the mystical, Jed astonishes the reader not by adding to the world's collected spiritual wisdom, but by taking the spirituality out of spiritual enlightenment. Never before has this elusive topic been treated in so engaging and accessible a manner. Part exposé, part how-to-manual, and all delightful reading, this book explains why failure seems to be the rule in the search for enlightenment, and how the rule can be broken.

The Force is With You,
by Stephen Simon. (Hampton Roads, $14.95, Paperback)

Movies are the most electrifying communications medium ever devised and the natural conduit of inspiring ourselves to look into the eternal issues of who we are and why we are here.

So says film executive Stephen Simon, producer of more that thirty films, including Somewhere in Time and What Dreams May Come. Simon illuminates for the first time, with humor, energy and passion, the emerging category of Spiritual Cinema; a genre finally being recognized for what it is: a metaphoric pathway to explore such things as the nature of love, the meaning of life and death, the concept of time and space, the visions of our future.

Movies have become our windows to the universe. The sheer imaginative power of the screen has shaped the way humanity views itself, the world, and the cosmos. The increasing sophistication of the technology of cinema allows us to see images that reflect all the imagination can conjure up -- from our greatest fears to our deepest desires. Spiritual Cinema asks the questions plaguing us since humans first contemplated the heavens, and poses some answers as well.

Through his exploration of more than seventy movies that best represent the genre in all its aspects, Simon gives us his personal interpretation of these films and the extraordinary messages they embody. Here is a wealth of inspiration, including the inside stories behind the making of many films and the familiar names who participated in their making. This is a book that will break ground for the many visionary storytellers and filmmakers to come, and most of all, their audiences.