Religious Biographies

After so much tapasya, I have understood this as the highest truth: God is present in every being. There is no other God besides that. He who serves all beings serves God indeed.

Born Julius Marx in 1890, the brilliant comic actor who would later be known as Groucho was the most verbal of the famed comedy team the Marx Brothers, his broad slapstick portrayals elevated by ingenious wordplay and double entendre. In his spirited biography of this beloved American iconoclast, Lee Siegel views the life of Groucho through the lens of his work on stage, screen, and television.

Pastor and author Timothy Keller (1950–2023) built a lasting legacy in Christian ministry, planting Redeemer Presbyterian Church and cofounding the Gospel Coalition. With sharp biblical insight that has shaped countless church leaders, along with counsel on the Christian life that has stirred and strengthened audiences worldwide, Keller's teaching promises to influence generations to come. Synthesizing Keller's work topic by topic, each chapter of this book highlights a key aspect of the Christian life—covering his views on prayer, suffering, friendship, vocation, intimacy with God, and more

Born Erik Weisz in Budapest in 1874, Houdini grew up an impoverished Jewish immigrant in the Midwest and became world-famous thanks to talent, industry, and ferocious determination. Nobody knows how Houdini performed some of his dazzling, death-defying tricks, and nobody knows, finally, why he felt compelled to punish and imprison himself over and over again. Tracking the restless Houdini's wide-ranging exploits, acclaimed biographer Adam Begley tells the story of a mystifying man's astonishing career.

In its early years, Duluth was a gold mine for lumber barons. Men were employed as lumberjacks and worked like beasts, only to be tossed aside like used equipment when no longer needed. The grand forests were raped for their prime timber, the balance burned wastefully. The men were coarse and hard, but they had to be to survive. More than any other people that ever lived in our land, these old-time lumberjacks could truthfully say, "No man cared for my soul." That is, until God sent three men to the great Northwoods of our country - Frank Higgins, John Sornberger, and Al Channer.

The fascinating, true account of the quest for one of the Old Testament’s most infamous cities. Like many modern-day Christians, Dr. Steven Collins struggled with what seemed to be a clash between his belief in the Bible and the research regarding ancient history - a crisis of faith that inspired him to put both his education and the Bible to the test by embarking on an expedition that has led to one of the most exciting finds in recent archaeology.

In 1974, Jim and Tammy Bakker launched their television show, The PTL Club, from a former furniture store in Charlotte, North Carolina, with half a dozen friends. By 1987, they stood at the center of a ministry empire that included their own satellite network, a 2300-acre theme park visited by six million people a year, and millions of adoring fans.

Jonathan Edwards is one of the most extraordinary figures in American history. Arguably the most brilliant theologian ever born on American soil, Edwards (1703 - 1758) was also a pastor, a renowned preacher, a missionary to the Native Americans, a biographer, a college president, a philosopher, a loving husband, and the father of 11 children.

Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.

Dorothy Day (1897-1980) was a prominent Catholic, writer, social activist, and cofounder of a movement dedicated to serving the poorest of the poor. Her life has been revealed through her own writings as well as the work of historians, theologians, and academics. What has been missing until now is a more personal account from the point of view of someone who knew her well.

These hilarious essays on life inside and outside a Zen monastery make up the spiritual memoir of Shozan Jack Haubner, a Zen monk who didn’t really start out to be one. Raised in a conservative Catholic family, Shozan went on to study philosophy (becoming de-Catholicized in the process) and to pursue a career as a screenwriter and stand-up comic in the clubs of L.A. How he went from life in the fast lane to life on the stationary meditation cushion is the subject of this laugh-out-loud funny account of his experiences.

Joseph Smith Jr. (1805–1844) was one of the most successful and controversial religious leaders of nineteenth-century America, publishing the Book of Mormon and starting what would become the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He built temples, founded a city-state in Illinois, ran for president, and married more than thirty women. This self-made prophet thrilled his followers with his grand vision of peace and unity, but his increasingly grandiose plans tested and sometimes shattered their faith.

There are some men in the pages of history, whose greatness no person of common sense thinks of disputing. They tower above the herd of mankind, like the Pyramids, the Parthenon, and the Colosseum, among buildings. Such men were Luther and Augustine, Gustavus Adolphus and George Washington, Columbus and Sir Isaac Newton. He who questions greatness must be content to be thought very ignorant, very prejudiced, or very eccentric. Public opinion has come to a conclusion about them - they were great men.

When Huda meets Hadi, the boy she will ultimately marry, she is six years old. Both are the American-born children of Iraqi immigrants, who grew up on opposite ends of California. Hadi considers Huda his childhood sweetheart, the first and only girl he's ever loved, but Huda needs proof that she is more than just the girl Hadi's mother has chosen for her son. She wants what the American girls have - the entertainment culture's almost singular tale of chance meetings, defying the odds, and falling in love.

My Amish Story is the story of the last few years of Amish life for the Graber family in the 1990s. It’s about the hurdles of breaking the barriers of centuries, of family circles being broken with no good-byes, of heartbreak and estrangement, and of the transitions and adjustments to a new way of living.

John Piper fires readers' passion for the centrality and supremacy of God by unfolding Calvin's exemplary zeal for the glory of God. God rests all too lightly on the church's mind in our time. Consequently, the self-saturation of his people has made God and his glory auxiliary, and his majesty has all but disappeared from the modern evangelical world. John Calvin saw a similar thing in his day, and it was at the root of his quarrel with Rome.

By the end of his brief life Ulrich Zwingli would change the religious landscape of his home and the world. It wasn't until the last few years of his life that he became a reformer. He fought for truth and righteousness with his mind and pen, he fought for lost souls to hear the good news of Jesus Christ, and at the age of 47, as an army chaplain, he was killed on the battlefield. The Shepherd Warrior, Ulrich Zwingli, fought the good fight. With his last strength he voiced his victory: "They can kill the body but not the soul!"

The Apostle Paul was kind of a jerk. He was arrogant and stubborn. He called his opponents derogatory, racist names. He legitimized slavery and silenced women. He was a moralistic, homophobic killjoy who imposed his narrow religious views on others. Or was he? Randolph Richards and Brandon O'Brien explore the complicated persona and teachings of the Apostle Paul. Unpacking his personal history and cultural context, they show how Paul both offended Roman perspectives and scandalized Jewish sensibilities.

J.R.R. Tolkien's creations, imagination, and characters captured the attention of millions of readers. But who was the man who dreamt up the intricate languages and perfectly crafted world of Middle-earth? Tolkien had a difficult life, for many years: orphaned and poor, his guardian forbade him to communicate with the woman he had fallen in love with, and he went through the horrors of the First World War. An intensely private and brilliant scholar, he spent over 50 years working on the languages, history, peoples, and geography of Middle-earth,

Recruited into the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement as a young wife, Tia Levings learned that being a good Christian meant following a list of additional life principles—a series of secret, special rules to obey. Being a godly and submissive wife in Christian Patriarchy included strict discipline, isolation, and an alternative lifestyle that appeared wholesome to outsiders. Women were to be silent, “keepers of the home.” A Well-Trained Wife is an unforgettable memoir about a woman's race to save herself and her family and details the ways that extreme views can manifest in a marriage.