Tuesday, November 13, 2007

BOOK NEWS ROUND-UP -- November & December 2007

ANAPHORA PRESS, a brand new orthodox publishing company, will be launched around November 15. Anaphora, founded by Macrina and Christopher Lewis, will hold a pre-release sale for their CD Cherubika and their first book, a collection of poetry called Mysteries of Silence, once the site is active. Although not quite live yet, Anaphora's website will be anaphorapress.com. The site will feature the sale of liturgical sheet music and space for the work of contemporary Orthodox fiction writers and poets. "We are seeking works that are polished, well-crafted, and convey a deep sense of meaning which in some way reflects on our Orthodox presence in this life," Macrina Lewis said. For more information about submitting work to Anaphora Press, e-mail Macrina at macrina440(at)mac.com.

CONCILIAR PRESS recently released Fr. Meletios Webber's Bread & Water, Wine & Oil. At the end of October, they released their first prayer book for teens, author Annalisa Boyd's Hear Me!. Coming soon from Conciliar: children's author Claire Brandenburg's Song of the Talanton and a book on pastoral epistles by Fr. Lawrence Farley.

ORBIS BOOKS will be re-releasing an updated version of Jim Forest's classic work Praying With Icons in the spring of 2008.

PARACLETE PRESS just released an illustrated hardcover book with Orthodox appeal for the Nativity 2007 season. God With Us: Rediscovering the meaning of Christmas includes the reflections on the meaning of Christmas from contributors including Scott Cairns, Emilie Griffin, Richard John Neuhaus, Kathleen Norris, Eugene Peterson, and Luci Shaw.God With Us was edited by Gregory Wolfe, founder and editor of Image Journal and Greg Pennoyer, Project Director for Incarnation: A Recovery of Meaning, an international art exhibition. God With Us was also released in email subscription form; the link to the subscription is on the bottom of the God With Us hardcover page.

Paraclete released Scott Cairn's book Love's Immensity last May.

ST. NECTARIOS PRESS just published a new children's book called Holy Week and Pascha by Euphemia Briere. According to the publisher's description, Holy Week and Pascha "takes us through the period in the life of Christ from the raising of Lazarus to the Resurrection, as reflected in the Divine Services of the Holy Orthodox Church." The book includes full-color icons and iconographic illustrations. Also out is the newly re-issued title The Life and Suffering of Saint Catherine the Great Martyr, previously out of print for two years. Translated from the Greek of the Great Synaxaristes by Leonidas J. Papadopoulos and Georgia Lizardos, The Life and Suffering of St. Catherine is a revised edition of the life of the popular Great Martyr of early 4th Century Alexandria. The new edition includes a Supplicatory Canon (Parkaklesis) in English, metered to Greek Chant.

St. Nectarios publishes about two to three new books a year. Coming in early 2008 is the middle grade book The Life of St. Martin of Tours. First published in 1966 and written by Verena Smith, the new version includes colored wood cut illustrations by Emile Probst. St. Nectarios also plans to release a volume of lives of saints from Cyprus translated by Leo Papadopoulos by the early summer of 2008.

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS just released a new translation of Nicholas Afanasiev's The Church of the Holy Spirit, translated by Vitaly Permiakov edited with an introduction by Michael Plekon, foreword by Rowan Williams. The book is now available.

Plekon is currently editing the translation of Antoine Arjakovsky's study of the great Paris emigre thinkers, including Berdiaev, Bulgakov, Florovsky and Lossky. He's also translating the new Olga Lossky bio of Elisabeth Behr-Sigel and is finishing up a sequel-of-sorts to his book Living Icons called Hidden Holiness which, Plekon says, is "a look at ordinary, diverse patterns of sanctity in our time."

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