Winter Reading

Awaken to Joy, by Laura Erdman-Luntz (Xlibris), 135 pages, $19.99 — What if joy was tangible…with specific, easily defined steps you could take to create it for yourself? It is! What if we could shift our attitude by just making some small changes in what we do in our everyday life? You can! This book is your guide to helping you move beyond the ordinary and showing you how to bring greater peace into your life, creating more open and loving relationships with your friends and family, finding harmony with your co-workers and joy in your work, and bringing more patience, love, and compassion to your relationships with your spouse and children. As an Inspiring Life Coach, Passionate Yoga Educator and Business Entrepreneur, Laura Erdman-Luntz has over 20 years experience in the fitness and wellness industries. She uniquely blends her Life Coaching knowledge and vast experience with Yoga to create programs, classes and workshops that bring mind and body together for positive change, inspiring people to live their most authentic life.

Be Love Now: The Path of the Heart, by Ram Dass with Rameshwar Das (HarperOne), 304 pages, $27.99 — Forty years ago, the publication of Ram Dass’ Be Here Now sparked a revolution and inspired a generation to see the world in a different light, opening their eyes to a brand new spiritual path. Now, reaching out to a new generation of readers, Ram Dass brings the world a powerful message of love and awakening. The celebrated teacher guides us through pitfalls and perils of our own spiritual journey. Offering a deeply personal, yet universal, exploration of what he has learned on his four-decade pilgrimage across cultures and religious traditions, Ram Dass shares powerful lessons on life, including: Love is a state of being, not a trip from here to there. The truth of this path of the heart is that there is no path. There is only the heart and the love. Also just released is the first E-book edition of the iconic Be Here Now, which features never-before released video of Ram Dass, audio of Ram Dass’ original Be Here Now lecture, and more.

The Compassionate Rebel Revolution: Ordinary People Changing the World, by Burt Berlowe (Mill City Press) 486 pages, $22.95 — A compassionate rebel lives in all of us. It combines our ability to care with our capacity to act against the odds for the change we believe in. This sequel to Compassionate Rebel looks at how millions of individual citizen actions have collectively become a massive social change movement that offers every person a chance to make a difference in the world. Featured are inspiring true stories of some 60 of these everyday heroes who have turned adversity into triumph, compassion into commitment and anger into activism, and whose extraordinary acts of caring and courage are transforming society from the bottom up. Their personal lives and bold accomplishments are constant reminders that the potential to change our culture dwells within everyone, that we are all part of the compassionate rebel revolution.

Dogs & the Women Who Love Them: Extraordinary True Stories of Loyalty, Healing and Inspiration, by Allen and Linda Anderson (New World Library), 256 pages, $14.95 — This new book celebrates canine-female teams who form deep bonds of companionship that result in compassionate and courageous acts of love and healing — for the dogs, the women, and all of the people whose lives they touch. Learn about: Beau, a rescued black Lab, who became “co-founder” of Patriot PAWS, a Texas nonprofit that Lori Stevens started to train service dogs for disabled veterans; and Major, an abused and neglected German shepherd who saved the life of award-winning police dog trainer Janet Koch Ballard, while serving as her K-9 partner. You will laugh, smile and be moved by shelter dogs, dogs rescued from hurricanes and dog fighting, and everyday mutts who transform lives.

Hard Times Require Furious Dancing, new poems by Alice Walker (New World Library), 184 pages, $18 — Alice Walker is known throughout the world as not only a great writer, but an activist and a woman who shares the inner turmoil and outer struggles of her life. These poems were written during struggles and sadness and deal with the loss of siblings, the loss of a beloved dog, the estrangement in families, violence and struggles on the world stage, and the simple joy of life itself. The words dance, they sing, they heal our hearts and touch our souls. Many poems read like sermons, such as the one that charges us to “Wake up!” because “The world has changed. It did not change without your determination to believe in liberation & kindness.”

The Life Codes, by Patty Harpenau (Tarcher/Penguin), 200 pages, $24.95 — A teaching novel based on the author’s own ground-breaking spiritual journey to Jerusalem, The Life Codes follows Michal, a young Dutch woman, as she searches for answers and fulfillment in the Holy City. Michal befriends a prominent Rabbi and his family, and through that bond, she breaks down an ages-old gender barrier to unlock information (or Codes) that had long been kept in secret texts and whispered in private ritual to men only. A bestseller in the Netherlands and only now available in the United States.

The Light Within: The Gift of a Rose, by Susan Therese Mavity (Eloquent Books), 107 pages, $12 — The author inspires us with a gripping tale about the effects of chronic medical distress and the courage it takes to uncover a reservoir of hope and healing buried deep inside. You will be enthralled as Mavity defines her allergy to an antibiotic and its devastating effects on her mind, body, and soul. Can you imagine your immune system being so compromised that you could no longer leave your home or touch something as simple as a bar of soap? And you will be elevated as Susan describes her defining moment–the one in which she was handed a prayer card of St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower, a saint who answers prayers with roses. Hope will spring eternal as you discover how each gift of roses opened a new path for healing. Susan Mavity has worked in the field of education for over 20 years. In 2004, Susan started Inner Resources Inc., a company to help others explore their inner gifts to bring mind, body and spirit together.

Peaceful Warrior: The Graphic Novel, by Dan Millman, illustrations by Andrew Winegarner (HJ Kramer), 192 pages, $14.95 — One of the most beloved spiritual sagas of our time is now available in a new version, based on a previously unused film script with a fresh, original story different from either the book or the movie. Written in 1990 by Millman, this is an illustrated form of the film he would have liked to have seen. The graphic novel contains the same magic woven into the pages of the original book, but also reveals for the first time: Why was Dan open to meeting Socrates on that starry night in December? How well did Joy know Joseph (who didn’t even appear in the film)? What vision did Socrates reveal to Dan about our place on Earth and the cosmos? What really happens to Socrates? What happens to Dan after his “death”? And what about that strange business card?

The Science of Mind: The Complete Editions, by Ernest Holmes (Tarcher/Penguin), 800 pages, $22.95 — Available for the first time on December 30, this edition contains both the version published by Ernest Holmes in 1938 — the “official” publication and the groundwork for what are now hundreds of spiritual centers throughout the United States and Canada — and the original version published in 1926 that contains sections on psychic phenomena, ghosts, séances and sexuality. For decades, there has been confusion about the two very distinct editions with the same title. While they share some of the same material, in large part these are two different books. Reading both gives students of positive thinking and Religious Science a sense of the growth of Ernest Holmes’ philosophy, and a fuller sense of the origins of New Thought.

Spiritual Envy: An Agnostic’s Quest, by Michael Krasny (New World Library), 264 pages, $22.94 — Some questions have no easy answers and most of us live most of our lives without even trying to answer them. But what we believe, why we believe it, and how we walk this talk affects every aspect of our lives — from how we make a living to who we love and even how we die. If questions can’t always be answered, award-winning interviewer Michael Krasny shows that there is still value in asking better, deeper, more soul- and mind-stirring questions. And asking questions is at the heart of agnosticism, which doesn’t say there is no God, but that God’s existence — and nonexistence — can’t be proven. Many agnostics take comfort in religious ritual and community and, as Krasny’s Spiritual Envy describes, agnosticism does not preclude spiritual hunger.

Spiritual Teachings of the Avatar: Ancient Wisdom for a New World, by Jeffrey Armstrong (Atria Books / Beyond Worlds), 218 pages, $22 — In this book readers will be enlightened on the meaning of the word “Avatar” and the relevance of the original Avatars of India in today’s world. Avatars, divine beings that descend from the transcendental realm to restore peace and harmony to the Earth, are manifestations of the Ultimate Being that can appear at will in human or animal form, according to Indian tradition. It is said that when Mother Nature has been harmed by the actions of humans, Avatars come to the Earth to restore karmic balance while showing humans the way back to the higher realms. The author has studied Vedic philosophy and Indian culture for more than 40 years.

Steps on the Way, by Father Peter Bowes (Sophia Publishing), 194 pages, $16, available at Stepsontheway.com — The fourth book by Father Peter Bowes is a collection of spiritual lectures the author has given during the past decade. Chapters cover a broad array of spiritual topics, ranging from “The Mind of Christ” to “Fitting Your Spiritual Life into a Hectic Schedule.” The author’s introduction is devoted almost entirely to the Essene community, a mystical group that started around 200 B.C. and saw its decline shortly after the death of Jesus. The Essene communities held to strong ideals of integrity in relating and being in the world, based on a foundation of connection to the divine through their deep devotional life. This is a handbook of how to bring deep, devotional spiritual practice into the reality of our modern world.