SOUL FOOD:Books that will nourish your religious, spiritual self

There was a time not long ago I never could have pictured myself picking up a book newly in my possession with a sigh. “Pfooof. Oh, please. Not … another … book.”

I’ve delighted in books more than most things in the world since before I could read. I still have the two volumes that earliest came into my hands: Platte and Munk’s “The Brimful Book” and “Nursery Tales Children Love.”

“The Brimful Book” was a gift to me for my second birthday from my Aunt Vi. Inside its front cover it’s so inscribed.

First published in 1928, three years after “Nursery Tales,” it was by 1952 in its 28th edition. As its title gives away, it brims over with the rhymes on which generations of English-speaking children cut their literary teeth.

There’s “Old Mother Hubbard,” “Little Tom Tucker” and “Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary.” In the back is an alphabet illustrated by G. & D. Haumann, who with Eul Alie and C.M. Burd illustrated most of the Platte and Munk Co.’s enduring children’s books.

Before the information age, the age of globalization and print-on-demand, books were things of permanence and weren’t so quick to go out of vogue like the fashions of last season. Even now, the cover of the Christmas book catalog I got this week from Ligonier Ministries touts “gifts that last forever.”

Yet apart from those treatises that already have long been classics — say Jonathan Edwards’ “Standing in Grace” or Jeremiah Burroughs’ “The Excellency of a Gracious Spirit” — I wouldn’t want to have to bet on which titles might still be on bookshelves in 2030.

These days, religion-faith-spirituality books roll off the presses each year like tsunamis roll off the ocean. A person could drown in them.

It’s driven me at times to my new lament: “Oh, please, please. Not … another … book.”

Many of them arrive unsolicited, delivered in padded envelopes to my front door. Others I pick up in the fall from the publishers who flock — some with their authors- of-the-moment — to the annual conference of the Religion Newswriters Assn.

Even an Evelyn Wood speed-reading course graduate couldn’t possibly read through them all. And frankly, not all of them are worth the time.

But I do, all the same, still delight in books. And I’m assuming, since you’re reading this column, that you and perhaps someone you know might also take pleasure in a couple of good books on things religious or spiritual.

So I’m going to share a few words about some of those — on topics ranging from Alzheimer’s to Zen — I consider keepers.

“Still Holding Hands,” by Stacie Ruth Stoelting. Stoelting wrote this book when she was 15. If I hadn’t told you, you would never guess it. This is the very personal story of her family’s experience with Alzheimer’s. It’s a love story. It’s heartbreaking. But because of this family’s faith, it’s never hope-breaking.

“Believers: A Journey into Evangelical America,” by Jeffery L. Sheler. A blurb on the cover says Sheler “portrays American Evangelicals as they really are, not as their political spokesmen — or, for that matter, their secular critics — imagine them to be.” I can’t say it better.

“A Jew Among the Evangelicals: A Guide for the Perplexed,” by Mark I. Pinsky. More stereotype-busting from a perspective different from Sheler’s. Pinsky, like Sheler, is a religion reporter. He is, as the title says, also a Jew.

“Why I Am Not A Calvinist,” by Jerry L. Walls and Joseph R. Dongell. A question I’ve often needed to answer. Thanks to Walls and Dongell, I didn’t have to write the book.

“Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith,” by Diana Butler Bass. Don’t let ‘em tell you mainline Protestant churches are dying in the streets of America, Bass says. I don’t know that she convinced me, but maybe she’ll convince you.

“A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity,” by Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor. If you think of yourself as Christian but not as Evangelical, mainline Protestant or Roman Catholic (or Eastern Orthodox), this book might be your “Christianity for the Other Rest of Us.” Otherwise, it may give you a case of the heebie-jeebies.

“The Rule of Benedict,” by David Gibson. This Benedict is the current Pope, not the 6th-century monk. Everyone who is interested in the role of religion in the world today should read this book. They just should. Gibson takes centuries of history and difficult ideas and makes them painlessly — even pleasantly — accessible.

“Oil & Water, Two Faiths: One God,” by Amir Hussain. Hussain knows what troubles you about Islam. It troubles him, too. It’s a treat to weary ears to see it discussed without the familiar polarizing rhetoric.

“The Face Behind the Veil: The Extraordinary Lives of Muslim Women in America,” by Donna Gehrke-White. If this book doesn’t change the way you think about Muslim women in America, either you are an American Muslim woman or you have many and various women friends who are — or both.

“Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam,” by Asra Q. Nomani. A very personal story that inevitably flows — like a river flows into an ocean — into a story far more encompassing.

“A New Perspective, Women in Islam: A Dialogue With an Islamic Scholar, Sayed Moustafa Al-Qazwini,” by Fatma Saleh. An informative interview (don’t expect to be entertained) that attempts to banish common distortions and misconceptions about Muslim women.

“Discovering Islam,” by Sayed Moustafa Al-Qazwini. It may not tell you everything you want to know about Islam, but if Islam is new to you, it’s a concise, easy-to-read leg up from an Iraq-born, Orange County imam.

“Four Women, Three Faiths: Inspiring Spiritual Journeys,” by Cecile S. Holmes. OK, Cecile is my friend. But she is also an award-winning journalist who has interviewed the likes of the Dalai Lama and John Paul II. She’s a great storyteller, here in six chapters, 156 pages. You’ll forget you’re reading; you’ll think you’re conversing with Holmes over coffee in her South Carolina kitchen.

“The Spirituality of Mazes & Labyrinths,” by Gailand MacQueen. This could be a petite coffee-table book. Hardcover with beautiful type and many lovely graphics and photographs, it “tells the story of labyrinths and mazes as spiritual symbols.” It offers more than history, though. As are labyrinths, the book is an activity.

“Practicing Peace In Times of War,” by Pema Chödrön. An American Buddhist nun offers her perspective in 100, 4-1/2 inch by 6-inch pages. It’s a quick read and small enough to be a stocking stuffer. But don’t let that let you sell it short.

More books — some particularly appropriate for Hanukkah and Christmas — next week.