Made For Goodness by Desmond Tutu

Available March 9th, 2010!

Over the years the same questions get asked of Desmond Tutu, the archbishop, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and veteran of the moral movement that ended apartheid in South Africa: “How can you be so hopeful after witnessing so much evil?” “Why are you so sure goodness will triumph in the end?” This book is his answer.

Now, more than any other time in history, our world needs this message: that we are made for goodness and it is up to us to live up to our destiny.

We recognize Archbishop Tutu from the headlines as an inspirational figure who has witnessed some of the world’s most sinister moments and chosen to be an ambassador of reconciliation amid political, diplomatic, and natural disasters. Now, we get a glimpse into his personal spirituality—and a better understanding of the man behind a lifetime of good works. In this intimate and personal sharing of his heart, written with his daughter, Episcopal priest Mpho Tutu, Tutu engages his reader with touching stories from his own life, as well as grisly memories from his work in the darkest corners of the world. There, amid the darkness, he calls us to hope, to joy, and to claim the goodness that we were made for. Tutu invites us to take on the disciplines of goodness, the practices that are key to finding fulfillment, meaning, and happiness for our lives.

Made For Goodness: And Why That Makes All the Difference
Authors: Desmond Tutu & Mpho Tutu
ISBN: 9780061706592

Psychic: My Life in Two Worlds by Sylvia Browne

“I have known Sylvia for twenty years, and I have the greatest respect for her. People seek her out for her much celebrated intuitive skills, however, I have sought her out for her friendship and kindness. I applaud her for the peace and solace that she has brought to so many.” — Montel Williams

“An amazing woman, an amazing life, and a book I couldn’t put down. Sylvia is a true inspiration.” — Jeanne Cooper, star of The Young and the Restless

Reaching deep beneath the surface of her life—then and now—renowned psychic and #1 New York Times bestselling author Sylvia Browne (The Other Side and Back) candidly discusses details of her professional and personal experiences that she’s never publicly revealed before.

Book Description

At the age of seventy-three, New York Times–bestselling author Sylvia Browne is ready to tell the whole story of her extraordinary life. In Psychic, we meet the woman behind the public figure: from the teenager doubting her own sanity to the new mother living through staggering highs and lows; from the burgeoning celebrity to the successful, happily married woman she is today. Filled with never-before-told stories, Psychic is a riveting account of how Sylvia Shoemaker, a traditional girl from Missouri, became world-famous psychic Sylvia Browne.

Nothing is off-limits. Sylvia tells the little-known truths behind her three failed marriages — including physical abuse, bankruptcy, and legal troubles — and the financial and emotional damage they wreaked. She revisits her personal demons and describes her physical challenges, from a series of painful hip surgeries to her relatively recent discovery that she’d suddenly gone blind in one eye. And then there is the greatest surprise of all: Sylvia tells how, once she had reached her seventies and believed her romantic life was over, the real Mr. Right finally — impossibly — showed up.

While the press has freely, often bitterly, weighed in on Sylvia’s most painful stories, she has remained quiet — until now. Unlike any other book Sylvia has written, Psychic reaches deep beneath the surface of her life, including professional and personal experiences that she is sharing publicly for the first time. With candor, warmth, and a great deal of humor, Sylvia Browne has written the singularly captivating tale of a life lived in two worlds, filled equally with harsh earthly realities and mesmerizing spiritual insights.

Title: Psychic: My Life in Two Worlds
Author: Sylvia Browne
ISBN: 9780061966729

Tales of Wonder by Huston Smith

Browse Inside the book: browseinside.harpercollins.com/index.aspx?isbn13=9780061154263

As Stephen Hawking is to science, as Peter Drucker is to economics, and as Joseph Campbell is to mythology, so is Huston Smith to religion. Tales of Wonder is the personal story of the author of the classic The World’s Religions, the man who taught a nation about the great faiths of the world, and his fascinating encounters with the people who helped shape the 20th century.

For a quiet, gentle scholar, Huston Smith has had the habit of showing up in the most remarkable places at the most historic times. For instance, he was raised by Christian missionary parents in Suchow, China during the rise of the revolutionary Sun Yat-sen and the Chinese Communist Party. On April 25, 1945, Huston obtained one of the rare public tickets to attend the first meeting of the United Nations. He invited Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Washington University in 1956–between Kings Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott and his historic March on Washington. The next year, the university integrated. In the 60s, he was in Cambridge at MIT doing hallucinogens with Timothy Leary and discussing metaphysics with Ram Dass and Andrew Weil. On a trip to Tanzania, Smith would be rescued from lions in the Serengeti Plains by Maasai warriors who took him to the encampment of the world-famous archeologists Louis and Mary Leakey for safekeeping (and a much needed glass of whiskey). Later Smith would meet the Dalai Lama in Northern India (30 years before His Holiness would be discovered by Hollywood and the West), go nearly psychotic while practicing meditation in the most demanding Zen monastery in Kyoto, and just happen to be in a taxicab in Tiananmen Square when the student protests of 1989 broke out. He’s climbed Mt. Athos, he’s gone to Washington, DC to defend the Native American Church’s right to use peyote in their rituals, and hes recorded multiphonic chanting with Tibetan Monks and Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead.

This autobiography tells the story of Smith’s experiences of historic turning points and encounters with many of the people that shaped the 20th century. In addition to the figures above, Smith tells stories of his very personal interactions with, to name a few: Mother Teresa, Eleanor Roosevelt, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Thomas Merton, Reinhold Niebuhr, Krishnamurti, Aldous Huxley, John Kenneth Galbraith, Noam Chomsky, Robert Graves, Saul Bellow, Pete Seeger, and Bill Moyers.

Smith has lived an amazing life, and his great stories of adventure and wonder serve as a travelogue, a popular history of a century of monumental changes, and an inspirational memoir.

Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine, an Autobiography
Author: Huston Smith
ISBN: 9780061154263

In Hanuman’s Hands by Cheeni Rao

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monkeysandjunkies.com

Hitting rock bottom as a homeless drug addict, Cheeni Rao returns to his family to find the door locked. Behind it he hears his Indian immigrant mother sobbing, I can do nothing for you. You are now in Hanumans hands. Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god, is his last resort.

In Hanumans Hands is a gritty, hauntingly beautiful memoir by a unique, new voice from the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop. Srinivas Cheeni Rao is a young man born to a long line of Indian Hindu priests, who faced with the freedoms and temptations of life on an elite New England college campus, spirals down into a hedonistic nightmare of drugs, sex and crime. On his long journey to recovery and rehabilitation, he is magically guided by visions of Hanuman, the trickster monkey god of the Indian epic poem, the Ramayana.

Bringing India whole heartedly into America, Rao weaves his own story of Western culture clash with mythic stories of his Hindu ancestors who served in the ancestral temples of Kali. On campus, his previous life of abstinence and celibacy devolves into a life of drug use and dealing to the offspring of Americas finest families. His perilous descent leads to a chilling threat by a local henchman named Teddy Two Doors, and Rao flees for his life. Hitting bottom in the back alleys of Chicagos Southside, the author begins to have visions of the mischievous monkey god Hanuman. This unlikely guide points the way to recovery at a half-way house run by a mug named Tats and shared by an unforgettable cast of street-wise characters. In Hanumans Hands charts Raos mythic battle for rehabilitation in a movingly beautiful memoir.

In Hanuman’s Hands: A Memoir
Author: Cheeni Rao
ISBN: 9780060736620

Isabel Allende

Shot for the Miami Book Fair.