Jesus Freaks – A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge
Don Lattin
Touching on its early history, leaders of the movement and testimony of ex- and current members, Lattin presents a creepy portrait of the Children of God cult, otherwise known as The Family. The book loosely follows the life of David Berg, the charismatic and manipulative leader, and his chosen disciple, Ricky Rodriguez. Lattin tells the story of the rise of the cult, the death of Berg and Rodriguez’s murder of Sue Kauten in an attempt to find and kill his own abusive mother and save his sister. I’m surprised Hollywood hasn’t made a movie yet – or have they?
Tinsel: A Search for America’s Christmas Present
Hank Stuever
Hank Stuever ventures into the heart of…lightness? Researching his book on Christmas he spends three holiday seasons in Frisco Texas, the home of glitter, country, Jay-szus, more glitter, mega-churches and mega-malls. Stuever follows Tammie, a professional Christmas decorator, trolls the malls daily, befriends a single mom and her daughter at dawn on black Friday and visits the YouTube Christmas light sensations – the Trykoskis. The crushing desire to provide the biggest, best, and most overblown Christmas is like a car accident. You just can’t stop looking at the lives of these people. They want so much to provide perfection and...
Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America-and Found Unexpected Peace
William Lobdell
Lobdell’s journey from non-belief, to fervent Christianity and back again is a surprisingly rational one. With his life falling apart on all fronts, a young Lobdell’s friend and mentor suggests he give Christianity a try. Following a conversion at a retreat, Lobdell reorders his life and soon finds the success and peace he had been searching for. As a journalist, he turned his newfound faith into a living, writing a religion beat. After years of covering upbeat stories of folks whose faith carried them through the worst life has to offer, Lobdell found himself covering the numerous accusations against the Catholic church. As afraid as he ...
U-Turn:What if You Woke Up One Morning and Realized You were Living the Wrong Life?
U-Turn:What if You Woke Up One Morning and Realized You were Living the Wrong Life? - Bruce Grierson
The epically long title of this books reflects the equally massive amount of information in this book. A hair under 300 pages it manages to pack in a dense, and truly fascinating, amount of information. A u-turner is someone who makes a radical change in their life – often swinging 180 degrees to a full polar opposite of their former beliefs. Many of the u-turners switch on strong stances as religion – becoming Christian on a walk, leaving Evangelicalism to become an atheist writer. Some swing wildly on politics – one day an ardent Republican, the next ...
The Year of Living Biblically
The Year of Living Biblically – A.J. Jacobs
From the author of The Know-it-All comes another awesome title. At loose ends after his year reading the encyclopedia, Jacobs decides to embark on another experiment. As a agnostic Jew he always had some interest in religion and the perplexed fascination with belief that many non-believers have.
Jacobs decides to meet the Bible head on. After completing a 70+ page list of commandments and rules from the Bible (old and new testament), Jacobs starts adding biblical commandments into his daily life. After soon realizing that many rules are contradictory and simply untenable, he decides to focus on one or two commandments each...
Escape
Carolyn Jessop
This true and grimly gripping biography pulls you in and grabs your imagination. To the average, educated midwesterner this story of polygamy, abuse and life in a totally insular religious community sounds like soap opera madness. But Jessop both lived it and survived it. As her community slid into madness, Jessop, weakened and sick after 8 births and caring for a son with cancer, still found the energy and resources to escape with all her children from the insane world of Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I spent the three-quarters of the book saying “What are you thinking? Leave!” and the...