Taylor Book News

The GP Taylor biography officially exists; Zondervan has posted the cover and basic info on GP Taylor: Sin, Salvation, and Shadomancer, as told to Bob Smietana. We'll get proofs soon, and the book is due out in October. I'm biased of course, but this a great story of God's grace over the long haul.

Graham's newest book, Tersias, is due out in the US this May, and Bene Diction reviewed it for Spero News and gave it a thumbs up.


Taylor's growing skill is evident in this newest novel. The reader's fears are laid bare; uncertainty, loneliness, hardship, confusion and longing are as identifiable in Taylor's landscape as they are our own. The unseen is seen through the Jonah, Tara, Maggot, Tersias and Malachi - the innocents swept up in events beyond their ability to understand and cope with. The characters are more stark; good, evil and the redeemed, and, as in his previous books, Taylor gives nothing away to help the reader guess who will find redemption

The God Factor

Cathleen Falsani gets religion. Ahd she practices creative, redemptive, and grace filled journalism. That is, whether she's talking to the archbishop of Chicago or the chief Pastafarian, she listens carefully and tries to tease of the truth wherever she can find it. It's a rare gift in the times, one Falsani puts to good use in her new book, The God Factor.

I had the chance to chat with Falsani about the God Factor few months back for a Religion News Service piece. The piece appeared last weekend here (and here and here but who's counting ?)

Some thoughts from Falsani on religion writing and the God Factor, a collection of conversations with public people--from Bono and Anne Rice to Barack Obama and Hugh Hefner--on faith:

• "I find people far more interesting than conflicts,” she said. “You can communicate great truths and universal ideas through the very specific. I could sit down and read four volumes of theology, but if I read a 400-word story about someone who actually expresses it in the way they live, in the way they love — that stays with me.”
  
• She prayed before the interviews that God would be present in the conversation.
  “Often I didn’t say very much (in the interview),” she said. “Being a good listener, because it is the loving and respectful thing to do, allows people to think out loud. I am comfortable with the awkward pauses, because usually the next thing that comes out of the person’s mouth is what they really want to say.”
  
• “Without grace, we are screwed,” she said. “If grace isn’t true, we might as well give up.”