cread | read & see

When forming beliefs and ideas are you more influenced by a powerful story or compelling facts and information? Shortly Cread will publish a joint review of José Saramago’s Cain (2010), alongside William Paul Young's Cross Roads (2012) and compare their use of narrative fiction to declare a view of God. They employ radically different forms matched by the divergence of the 'message' they convey. But is one more successful than the other in influencing, moving or informing readers? Or is that even the goal? One of the great dangers of fiction writing is 'telling' rather than 'showing' and books that seek to communicate a pre-determined message are particularly vulnerable. Which is not to say that most authors do not intend to communicate values to their readers. The reality is that, even sub-consciously, authors fill their novels with their values and beliefs, carrying them along in their characters and plots. Perhaps the more sub-conscious this is,

Many Australian Christian readers will have first read The 5 Love Languages many years ago and by now have moved through various sequels. The basic premise of the book is that each person gives and receives love in a different way, and so can be best reached by the love of another if they use the best 'love language'. Author Dr Gary Chapman has conveniently grouped the languages into five main areas. Given the general mysteriousness of love, readers have been snapping up the book for years, looking for answers. ( click the cover to buy now >> ) But, according to Publishers Weekly ,  that hasn't stopped a selling frenzy now that took the title to the number two position on Amazon this month, thanks to the 'Oprah Effect', years after it first became a New York Times bestseller. Author Dr Gary Chapman appeared on Oprah's Lifeclass on February 10 and 11 during which Oprah took the love languages quiz to discover her preferred love language. Watch ho

Fascination with heaven and the afterlife is influencing book sales with three books that tell the story of people who die, visit heaven and return to their lives on earth, showing strongly on USA Today’s best-seller list. According to a report in Charisma Magazine, Heaven Is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back , the Rev Todd Burpo’s 2010 tale of his 'son’s round trip to the Pearly Gates', has sold more than 7.5 million copies after 22 printings. It has been on USA Today’s best-seller list for 111 weeks and reached No. 1 eight times in 2011. It’s now No. 94. (Buy now - click cover  >>) Joining it more recently, Charisma says, is the story of Eben Alexander, a Harvard neurosurgeon who was in a coma for seven days in 2008. He encounters an angelic being who guides him into the 'deepest realms of super-physical existence.' His Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey Into the Afterlife , published last year, peake

Two women who have been through the most horrific events of our time have written of the comfort and aid brought by angels during periods of suffering. Genelle Guzman was the last person rescued from Ground Zero after the September 1, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre and tells her story in Angel in the Rubble . Ann Fogarty is one of few people to survive the seriousness of burns she received while protecting her children from the Ash Wednesday fires in 1983 and she tells her story in the new book, Forged with Flames . As scepticism often greets accounts of people coming through near death experiences and saying they went to heaven (or hell), so too no doubt many will be tempted to write-off accounts of angels from women suffering extreme trauma. But these are strong survivors who have told their stories in detail some time after the events, very differently, but with similar degrees of certainty. It may come down to your beliefs about spiritual reality... Mys

“I didn’t need a next book, I have everything that matters to me,” author of The Shack , William Paul Young, told Publisher's Weekly earlier this year. But a much-anticipated new book is exactly what he has with the novel Cross Roads published worldwide this week (Faith Words - Hatchette Group, hardcover, 480 pages) although in Australia it is available as 304 page paperback . Once again Young turns to fiction as spiritual metaphor and this time the main character is not working out his pain in a shack in the woods but reassessing his life while in a coma: "Anthony Spencer is egotistical, proud of being a self-made business success at the peak of his game, even though the cost of winning was painfully high. A cerebral hemorrhage leaves Tony comatose in a hospital ICU. He 'awakens' to find himself in a surreal world, a 'living' landscape that mirrors dimensions of his earthly life, from the beautiful to the corrupt. It is here that he has vivid interac

Books about supernatural and heavenly encounters during near death experiences are multiplying, to the extent that they are almost a publishing genre of their own. And while these stories abound in the 21st century, they are not a new phenomenon with the Apostle Paul in the 1st century being one of the first to publish an experience of heaven. "I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell." 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 But while Paul was quite circumspect about sharing his heavenly experience, even referring to it in the third person, today we'll look at five recent books that give detailed accounts of what the authors believe were their own experience of being "caught u

“We felt marginalised by the surfing community because we were Christians and marginalised from the church community because we were surfers.” Groundswell is the new book telling the history of Christian Surfers from its launch in southern-Sydney beachside suburb of Cronulla in 1977 through to today when it is an international movement involving thousands of surfers in more than 30 nations. And Groundswell is a fitting title for a book that has used the crowd-sourcing website Kickstart to secure $20,000 funding to ensure the books publication. More than 170 backers raised $23,564 to send the book to the printers in time for its launch at Cronulla Rydges on October 19 at 8pm. There'll be other launches around the nation with the international launch in Hawaii at the Christian Surfers international conference on November 8. The book is written and compiled by Christian Surfers founder Brett Davis who said during the Kickstart campaign: "We’re seeking to release Groun

Impoverished pop-fiction with "flat characters" such as in Fifty Shade of Grey was cheating young women of a dignified view of themselves, according to the author of a new book, Unseduced and Unshaken: The Place of Dignity in a Young Woman's Choices . Dr Rosalie de Rosset says the success of books like Fifty Shades and the Twilight series represents a frustrating trend among today’s women, but she is no less complimentary of Christian writing. Of the vast array of Christian books targetting women, Dr de Rosset says much of it consists of "Jesus fixes everything” scenarios that do not reflect anything like the complexity and depth of real life. “They are not well written and they are not theological.” she says.  Dr de Rosset is a Professor of Literature, English and Homiletics with a 42-year connection with Moody Bible Institute and a PhD in Language, Literacy, and Rhetoric from The University of Illinois,  Chicago. In an interview published on the Chr