WESTMONT, IL—WORLD Magazine recommended about five hundred books to its readers in 2018 and recently chose from those the top books of the year. The winners were made up of five nonfiction books of the year, four theological honorable mentions, and twenty-five short list honorees, including three InterVarsity Press titles: Last Call for Liberty by Os Guinness, Embodied Hope by Kelly M. Kapic, and Disruptive Witness by Alan Noble.

Last Call for Liberty: How America’s Genius for Freedom Has Become Its Greatest Threat made the short list in the Understanding America category. WORLD Magazine editors wrote: “In this year of battles between Pro-Trumpers and Never-Trumpers, Os Guinness has thoughtful observations that can benefit both camps. Guinness writes, ‘The present obsession with President Trump, whether supporting or opposing him, is a massively distorting factor for a simple reason: Donald Trump is the consequence of the crisis and not the cause.’’

A frequent international speaker and prominent social critic, Guinness argues that the American republic faces a fundamental crisis of freedom as once again America has become a house divided. This grand treatment of history, civics, and ethics in the Jewish and Christian traditions represents Guinness’s definitive exploration of the prospects for human freedom today.

Embodied Hope: A Theological Meditation on Pain and Suffering was one of the short list titles in the Accessible Theology book category. Drawing on his own family’s experience with prolonged physical pain, Kapic reshapes our understanding of suffering into the image of Jesus. Embodied Hope was also chosen as Christianity Today’s 2018 Book of the Year for Theology/Ethics.

Joni Eareckson Tada, founder and CEO, Joni and Friends International Disability Center, said, “I am all too familiar with the topic of this book, having lived as a quadriplegic for nearly fifty years and dealing daily with chronic pain. So I’m always heartened when I stumble upon a rich new resource that really encourages. That describes the remarkable book you hold in your hands. Rather than focus on why, Kelly makes much of how—how to trust God in this world. Best of all, Embodied Hope leads the reader to the foot of the cross, the only place to find true relief and healing.”

Another IVP title that made the short list in the Accessible Theology book category was Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age. In this timely book, Noble looks at our cultural moment, characterized by technological distraction and the growth of secularism, laying out individual, ecclesial, and cultural practices that disrupt our society’s deep-rooted assumptions and point beyond them to the transcendent grace and beauty of Jesus.

Author and podcaster Barnabas Piper said, “While reading Disruptive Witness I got more than a little tired of Alan Noble reading my mind, diagnosing my issues, and jabbing at the nerves of my heart. Page after page he hit on issues of thought, habit, perspective, or lifestyle with which I struggle and in which I fail to be a proper witness for Jesus. Of course what I was really tired of was my own distracted, thin faith. And those are the very things this book helps. Noble clearly and gently diagnoses the problems first and then he offers robust solutions. Disruptive Witness is incisive, substantial, and encouraging for tired, frustrated believers looking for direction.”

For a complete list of IVP award winners visit ivpress.com/award-winners.

Founded in 1947 as an extension of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, InterVarsity Press serves those in the university, the church and the world by publishing thoughtful Christian books that equip and encourage people to follow Jesus as Savior and Lord in all of life. For more information, visit ivpress.com.

Contact: Krista Clayton, 630.734.4013, kclayton@ivpress.com

Ada, Mich. (December 10, 2018)—Baker Publishing Group is pleased to welcome Rachel McRae to the Baker Publishing family as senior acquisitions editor for Revell Books. Rachel comes to us from LifeWay Christian Stores, her career home for the past eighteen years. Most recently, she served as category director of books, kids, reference, and academic business areas for 170 retail stores. Her industry experience and knowledge base are outpaced only by her passion for serving Christian readers. Rachel will be located in Nashville, Tennessee.

Andrea Doering, editorial director for Revell, stated, “Rachel’s depth of experience serving Christian readers, her desire to provide books that change lives, and her wealth of industry knowledge are exceptional. For years we’ve been privileged to work with Rachel as an industry colleague; we’re thrilled to now have her join Revell and bring her skills to our team.”

Rachel McRae said, “I’ve been a big fan of Baker Publishing Group and Revell in particular for many years, both as a buyer for a chain as well as for my own reading enjoyment. I’m honored to join the Revell team, and I look forward to discovering new projects and authors that will further Revell’s impact on the industry and also bring encouragement and help to readers.”

Revell has a passion for providing books that inspire and equip readers, offering them hope and help for daily life.

Baker Publishing Group publishes high-quality writings that represent historic Christianity and serve the diverse interests and concerns of evangelical readers.

Contact: Ruth Anderson, (616)676-9185 x8131, randerson@bakerpublishinggroup.com

Life to the Extreme to release May 14, 2019

Grand Rapids, Mich., November 27, 2018 – Star of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and the current Trading Spaces reboot, Ty Pennington, has inked a one-book contract with Zondervan. Life to the Extreme: How a Chaotic Kid Became America’s Favorite Carpenter, written with Travis Thrasher, will release in May 2019. Pennington is represented by Bill Stankey of Westport Entertainment. World rights were acquired by Senior Vice President of Author and Partner Development Matthew Baugher and Zondervan Acquisitions Editor Andy Rogers.

For the first time, Pennington shares parts of his personal story with fans. From his early life in Georgia where he built his first treehouse, to being diagnosed with ADHD in his college years, to achieving incredible television success—his life has been one adventure after another. In Life to the Extreme, Pennington will share the life lessons he’s learned through years. Serving others, random acts of kindness, and battling whatever life throws are the hallmarks of building a life that matters.

Pennington has been recognized as a leader in the field of volunteerism for his work on Extreme Makeover and Ty’s Great British Adventure. He served as ambassador for the Sears American Dream campaign. In line with his passion for creative and practical housing, he frequently volunteers time with Abōd Shelters Foundation, a charitable organization whose mission is to provide sustainable, quality housing to areas in need around the world.

“Ty Pennington has spent his career serving others and entertaining people with brilliant designs and an infectious sense of adventure,” says Andy Rogers, acquisitions editor. “He has a rare gift to draw communities together and create positive change. And he does so in a way that’s always … uniquely Ty. He’s also a recognized voice of encouragement for those living with ADHD and other challenges. This book will capture all of that and more.”

Book Details

Life to the Extreme: How a Chaotic Kid Became America’s Favorite Carpenter
By Ty Pennington with Travis Thrasher
Zondervan

ON SALE: May 14, 2019 
$26.99 hardcover
ISBN: 9780310357377

Zondervan is a world leading Bible publisher and provider of Christian communications.  Zondervan, part of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc., delivers transformational Christian experiences through its bestselling Bibles, books, curriculum, academic resources and digital products. The Company’s products are sold worldwide and translated into nearly 200 languages. Zondervan offices are located in Grand Rapids, Mich.  For additional information, please visit www.zondervan.com.

Contact: Robin Barnett, 616-698-3251, robin.barnett@harpercollins.com

WESTMONT, IL—InterVarsity Press is pleased to announce that Library Journal selected Birthing Hope by Rachel Marie Stone for its 2018 Best Books list.

“Rachel Marie Stone is one of the most elegant and perceptive authors I have ever worked with,” said Al Hsu, senior editor, IVP Books. “Her writing makes us reflect deeply on things that matter—birth and death, family and fear, life and hope. I’m delighted that Birthing Hope has been named one of the best books this year, or any year! Congratulations, Rachel.”

In place of the top ten best books list that Library Journal has traditionally released, this year editors sifted through thousands of books that were published in 2018 and put together a larger and more diverse mix of titles across twenty categories, with 188 titles recognized.

Birthing Hope: Giving Fear to the Light was chosen as one of Library Journal ’s top ten books in the religion and spirituality category. The mother of two sons, Stone unpacks how childbirth reveals our anxieties, our physicality, our mortality. She writes, “To bring anything new into the world is to open one’s self and therefore to take on risk, to contaminate oneself with the other, to be made vulnerable. This requires not just courage but many things, among them faith, hope, help, companionship, grace—in a word, love.”

In a June 2018 Library Journal review, Sandra Collins described Birthing Hope this way: “A quiet memoir on hope as the most paradoxical of virtues.”

Rachel Held Evans, author of Searching for Sunday, said, “I’ve been waiting for a book like this one for years, and no one could have written it more beautifully and wisely than Rachel Marie Stone. With the skill of a poet and the patience of a doula, Stone invites the reader to look straight into the face of fear and find in it the spark of hope. There are words and phrases from these pages that I will go on pondering for years. Theologically rich and carefully researched, Birthing Hope is a book for everyone, but as a new mother it proved life changing—the kind of book that leaves you breathless.”

Stone teaches English at the Stony Brook School in Stony Brook, New York. Her writing about food, faith, justice, public health, and maternal health has appeared in the New York Times, theWashington Post, the Huffington Post, Christianity Today, the Christian Century, Books & Culture, Sojourners, In Touch magazine, Religion News Service, Patheos, and more. Her books include the revised More-with-Less cookbook, Telling God’s Story, and Eat with Joy: Redeeming God’s Gift of Food, which won a Christianity Today Book Award and was named by a Religion News Service columnist as one of the year’s ten most intriguing titles in religion.

For a complete list of IVP award winners visit ivpress.com/awardwinners.

Founded in 1947 as an extension of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, InterVarsity Press serves those in the university, the church, and the world by publishing thoughtful Christian books that equip and encourage people to follow Jesus as Savior and Lord in all of life. For more information, visit ivpress.com.

photo credit: Tyler Christian

Colorado Springs, CO – December 3, 2018—Alive Literary Agency today announced its Founder and CEO Rick Christian is stepping down March 1 after 30 years, and that an internal sale of the agency has been executed with its President Bryan Norman and Executive VP Lisa Jackson.

“I am grateful I could spend the bulk of my working years doing what I love with people I adore, realize my dreams, and accomplish the tasks with which I was entrusted,” said Christian. “There is no greater joy than to now pass the baton to such qualified successors.”

“It’s an honor to build on the strong foundation Rick established, and we look forward to leading Alive for the next 30 years,” said Norman, who joined Alive in 2013 after nine years at Thomas Nelson Publishers in Nashville. He rose there through the editorial ranks to become Associate Publisher at one of the industry’s leading nonfiction trade groups.

He reported that he and Jackson will continue operations under the same name with their current business titles. “We are grateful Rick will continue to consult with us for three years to ensure continuity of all things within the author and publishing communities, and enable us to fully replicate everything he’s been doing in the film and TV space.”

Christian’s daughter and 12-year Alive agent Andrea Heinecke will continue her employment with the agency, overseeing existing clients, backlist titles, and assist with the burgeoning publishing and film/TV career of novelist Karen Kingsbury and her son Tyler Russell, the sole clients Christian will personally work with under his consulting relationship.

“We’ve been working on this plan for the past three years with the help of outside consultants, most notably a woman in Denver who built a thriving business advising top corporate and military leaders and consulting with the Pentagon,” said Jackson, who joined Alive in 2015 after a publishing career spanning newspapers, magazines and 15 years as the Associate Publisher of nonfiction at Tyndale Publishing House in Carol Stream, IL. “While we’ve faced unique challenges, the transition has been seamless and a fabulous model by any measure. And yet it is bittersweet to see our dear friend and mentor step away from Alive’s helm after such a distinguished and storied career.”

“We’re told for everything there is a season,” said Christian, who turns 65 December 22. “Three years ago when I first broached the idea of the transition, I placed a walking stick and backpack prominently in my office as a visual reminder to staff and others that our paths would diverge at some point. As for the road ahead, I want to take a long sabbatical season to reread my favorite novels and all of Eugene Peterson’s works, hike and fish the high mountains of Colorado, discover new music and poetry, finish a book I started writing, ski plenty, and give my soul breathing room to allow new things to bubble up and provide direction for my next assignment. My wife Debbie and I are rich with friends and privileged to have a large and close family, and so there’s much to look forward to with them and our 12 grands.”

Christian launched Alive in Los Angeles in 1989 and moved operations to Colorado Springs in 1991. In his tenure, he has 15 New York Times #1 bestsellers to his credit, and books Alive represented have sold more than 250 million copies.

Christian’s efforts on behalf of top authors have been widely chronicled in leading newspapers and magazines, including a cover profile for Christianity Today. His biography and record of achievement have appeared in Who’s Who in America.

Raised in San Diego and a 1977 graduate of Stanford University (communications and creative writing), he also studied at Capernwray Bible School in England and the University of Southern California where he pursued graduate work in professional writing, though he never completed that degree.

Christian launched his publishing career as a newspaper reporter and columnist, followed by a career switch to magazine publishing. He served as associate editor of Campus Life magazine, executive editor of The Saturday Evening Post, and then transitioned to executive leadership in book publishing. Along the way, he wrote several books himself, including the youth devotional Alive, The Woodland Hills Tragedy, A Gift of Life, and Silent Night, which was adapted for the television series “Sue Thomas F.B.Eye.”

It is as a literary agent that Christian became renowned, particularly for his entrepreneurial efforts behind such mega-sellers as Jerry Jenkins’ and Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series (70 million copies with millions more in 27 languages), Eugene Peterson’s The Message Bible (20 million copies), Karen Kingsbury’s novels (25 million copies), Lisa Beamer’s post 9-11 Let’s Roll (1.5 million copies), and the Life Recovery Bible (3 million copies).

He is also celebrated for his literary efforts on behalf of Brennan Manning, Anne Graham Lotz, Henri Nouwen, Emerson Eggerichs, Elisa Morgan, Dave and Jan Dravecky, Rwanda President Paul Kagame, and select titles from Billy Graham and Philip Yancey, among many others. Other Alive phenoms include Don Miller’s Blue Like Jazz (1 million copies), Ron Hall and Denver Moore’s Same Kind of Different as Me (1 million), and Heaven is for Real (13 million). Additionally, he has championed the adaptation of Alive books for film and TV, including Tri-Star’s hit production of Heaven Is for Real, Paramount’s Same Kind of Different as Me, Karen Kingsbury’s upcoming Baxter Family streaming series with Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, and numerous films for Hallmark Channel and various independent producers.

Christian’s representation of high-profile properties, negotiation for major film and TV adaptations, and pioneering work to develop crossover markets and leverage support across all formats and media earned him and his Alive team its reputation as the premier agency for inspirational content and authors.

Christian also served as the longtime Board Chair of Tirzah International, a grassroots ministry that addresses issues of injustice affecting women and girls worldwide. He and his wife Debbie have a blended family of seven children and live on a ranch in Black Forest, outside of Colorado Springs.

“I was given a leg up by many, and am glad I could pay it forward along the way,” Christian said. “Authors, publishers and retailers face critical challenges, but I’m encouraged that industry sales are largely up in the latest reports and that young parents continue reading to their children who hopefully will become the next-gen authors Alive represents in seasons ahead.”

For more information, contact:  Rick Christian  rchristian@aliveliterary.com  cell: 719-331-7073

SANTA MONICA, Cal. (November 26, 2018) – A humorous memoir by 80-year-old Peggy Rowe, About My Mother (November 13, Forefront Books) hit three major bestseller lists over the weekend appearing at #8 on the New York Times, #6 on Wall Street Journal and #16 on USA TODAY.

“It’s such an honor to work with Peggy Rowe,” said Jonathan Merkh, founder and publisher of Forefront Books. “The strength of her humor and storytelling has captivated America.”

About My Mother features a foreword from Rowe’s son – Executive Producer, Show Host, and Podcaster Mike Rowe, who has helped make his mother a favorite among his “little Facebook friends” (as coined by Peggy) with a regular bit he calls, “Mondays with Mother,” where he shares her humorous antics with more than 5 million Facebook friends. Mike’s fans have turned out in droves to support About My Mother, which now has 85,000+ followers on its own Facebook page.

Upon its pre-release in September, About My Mother temporarily trumped Bob Woodward’s Fear to become the number one seller on BN.com and caused havoc at Amazon.com due to its overwhelming popularity. When it originally released this summer, the then self-published title sold 10,000 copies in three weeks, drawing the attention of publishers including newly-created Forefront Books, helmed by former Howard Books/Simon & Schuster publisher Jonathan Merkh, who picked it up. About My Mother: True Stories of a Horse-Crazy Daughter and Her Baseball-Obsessed Mother released from Forefront Books on November 13 and distributed by Simon & Schuster.

“It never fails.  Every time I involve my mother in a TV show or a commercial campaign, she upstages me,” says Rowe.  “Now, just as I was preparing to write a book of my own, she cranks out a feel-good hit of the summer.  And I’m not even in it! Typical.”

Peggy Rowe is working on her second book.

About My Mother:  There’s a Thelma Knobel in everyone’s life.  She’s the person taking charge—the one who knows instinctively how things should be. Today, Thelma would be described as an alpha personality.  But while growing up, her daughter, Peggy, saw her as a dictator–albeit a benevolent, loving one. They clashed from the beginning: Peggy, the horse-crazy tomboy, and Thelma, a genteel controlling mother, committed to raising two refined, ladylike daughters.

When major league baseball came to town in the early 1950s and turned sophisticated Thelma into a crazed Baltimore Orioles groupie, nobody was more surprised and embarrassed than Peggy.  Life became a series of compromises–Thelma tolerating a daughter who pitched manure and galloped the countryside, while Peggy learned to tolerate the whacky Orioles fan who threw her underwear at the TV, shouted insults at umpires, and lived by the orange and black schedule taped to the refrigerator door.

About Forefront Books:  Serving as a concierge publisher, Forefront Books works directly with clients to create a winning publishing strategy.  Forefront Books’ founder and publisher, Jonathan Merkh, has over 25 years of experience and has published over 1,000 books including over 50 New York Times best-sellers with 10s of millions of copies sold with authors such as Dave Ramsey, Charles F Stanley, The Robertson family from Duck Dynasty and many more. Forefront Books is distributed by Simon & Schuster.

Contact:  Jennifer Willingham / Paige Collins, ICON Media Group, jennifer@iconmediagroup.com / paige@iconmediagroup.com, 615-483-4729 / 615-934-4162

New York, November 11, 2018 — Held every October in Lille, France, the Clowns of Hope Relay Marathon event raises money for this charitable organization.  The money is used to send clowns and other artists into children’s hospitals to lift the spirits of the ailing children.  The event attracts around 1500 runners, all of whom run a 5k, 7k or 10k leg of the marathon.

With sunny skies and temperatures reaching 75°F, it was perfect weather for the race.  Nord Compo sent three teams to support the charity (and to run).  While no Olympic records were broken, thousands of Euros were raised for this worthy cause.

Pictured is Nord Compo’s “Team USA.”

Moody Bible Institute, an organization that has already trained generations of Christian leaders around the world, distributes millions of books and provides biblically-based programming through one of the oldest Christian radio networks in the country, today dedicated its new global media center, The Chapman Center.