Everything happens for a reason And other lies I've loved

HOW TO BREAK UP WITH YOUR PHONE By Catherine Price. (Ten Speed, paper, $12.99.) We're all addicted. That's not big news. But are there practical ways to unplug and, as Price puts it, "take back your life"? She has a plan, a 30-day plan, everything happens for a reason By Kate Bowler. (Random House, $26.) Bowler, a professor at Duke Divinity School, had a perspective-altering experience at 35 when she learned she had late-stage colon cancer. This is a memoir about her disillusionment with the "prosperity gospel," that American belief that to good people come only good things. She doesn't think this anymore, being wagner By Simon Callow. (Vintage, paper, $16.95.) Author of a monumental biography of Orson Welles, Callow now turns to an equally operatic subject: Richard Wagner, his life and times, building the great society By Joshua Zeitz. (Viking, $30.) The inner workings of the White House, with its war room intensity, never ceases to capture readers' attention. Zeitz delves here into Lyndon B. Johnson's administration, capturing both the atmosphere and the advisers (Bill Moyers and Jack Valenti, among others) who made Johnson's vision a reality, a literary tour de france By Robert Darnton. (Oxford, $34.95.) Darnton continues his decades-long exploration of how the publishing industry worked in France on the eve of the revolution. Using a trove of documents from a Swiss publisher that smuggled illegal works over the border, he is able to piece together a complex network that put subversive books in the hands of French men and women. "It is an intimate, often embarrassing thing to read over someone else's shoulder. (Anyone looking for a quick, effective mortification need only check the marginalia in his college paperbacks.) But certain books are wide and deep enough to deserve docents: George Eliot's 'Middlemarch' is, and Rebecca Mead, a staff writer at The New Yorker, whose my life in middlemarch I have been plunging through, is a sympathetic guide. 'Middlemarch' is both a boulder and a lodestar, a hulking, lengthy exploration of life's little delights and its disappointments - nominally as experienced by provincial burghers, but really, by us all. Mead weaves in bits of Eliot's own biography, appreciations of subsequent fans like Virginia Woolf and her own life story. In so doing, she brings what can seem remote in Eliot into the present, and touches on her profound achievement: the way she enters into but also remains above her characters, opening up for examination their innocent folly, their tragic hubris, their gentle goodness and their slippery selfregard." - MATTHEW SCHNEIER, STYLES REPORTER, ON WHAT HE'S READING.

With grace, wisdom, and humor, Bowler (Blessed), a divinity professor at Duke University, tells of her cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment in a way that pierces platitudes to showcase her resilience in the face of impending death. At 35 years old, after months of enduring stomach pains and visiting specialists who had conflicting suggestions, Bowler was rushed into emergency surgery for stage IV colon cancer. Surrounded by her husband, very young son, and a host of supportive friends, she faces down the likelihood that she will not live a year. As she responds well to treatment, she enters a period of uncertainty, hoping to survive and maximize her time with her family. Throughout her account of weekly flights to Atlanta from North Carolina for experimental therapy and realizations that each holiday might be her last, she relates her suddenly terrifying life to her academic work on the prosperity gospel-a peculiarly American belief in deserved success and control that is at odds with her current life. Bowler's lovely prose and sharp wit capture her struggle to find continued joy after her diagnosis. This poignant look at the unpredictable promises of faith will amaze readers. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

A touching tale of battling cancer set against the backdrop of the prosperity gospel.Bowler (Duke Divinity School; Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, 2013), a specialist in the study of the prosperity gospel, found her life turned upside down in her mid-30s with a diagnosis of stage 4 colon cancer. Here, she chronicles her journey from what seemed a death sentence to a lifestyle of living from one medical test to another, surviving as a result of the effects of a clinical trial and a stalwart community of friends and family. Throughout, the author delivers raw emotion, realistic description, and candid assessments, and she weaves in references to the faith system she has studied and, indeed, of which she has become a community member. Bowler points out the ironies of fighting a deadly battle against her own body while relating to a strand of Christianity that teaches that faith, holiness, and confidence will provide any sort of blessing or healing the believer needs. From Oprah to Osteen, Bowler examines the effects of such preaching upon people of faith, including the depth of turmoil that true tragedy often brings. The author sees her cancer story unfold in liturgical terms, using Christmas, Ash Wednesday, Lent, Easter, and Ordinary Time to explain her journey. Ultimately, in Ordinary Time (the bulk of the church year), she discovers the power of being present in life, enjoying her family, and finding meaning where she is able. Bowler's reflections will speak to those who have suffered similar illnesses and existential crises, and secondary themes abound: the inhumane and often emotionless face of modern health care, the capacity of family and close friends to give of themselves through love and generosity, the well-meaning but foolish things that people say to those who are living with serious health issues, and more.An inspiring story of finding faithin God, in family, and in oneselfwhile walking close to the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Chapter 1 Diagnosis I had lost almost thirty pounds by the time I was referred to a gastrointestinal surgeon at Duke University Hospital. Every few hours I doubled over from a stabbing pain in my stomach. This had happened so often over the last three months that I had developed a little ritual for it: reach for the nearest wall with the right hand, clutch my stomach with the left hand, close my eyes, keep perfectly silent. When the pain subsided, I would reach into my purse, take a swig from a giant bottle of antacid, stand up straight, and resume whatever I was doing without comment. It was a little creepy to watch, I'm sure, but it was the best I could do at pretending for so long. Now I was tired of pretending. I eyed the surgeon warily as he came into the small examining room where my husband, Toban, and I waited. He sat down heavily on his stool, sighing as if already annoyed. Then he said, "Well, I looked at your latest tests and they don't tell us anything conclusive." "I don't understand," I protested. "I thought the last test suggested that it was probably my gallbladder." "It's not entirely clear," he said in a hard voice. "So you're not prepared to operate," "Look, there is nothing to suggest that we are going after the right thing. I can take out your gallbladder and you might be in the same pain you're in today. Plus the pain and inconvenience of a surgery." I sighed. "I don't know how to get you, or anyone, to pay attention. I've been to all your specialists, but I have been in a crazy amount of pain for three months now, and I can't keep doing this." "Look," he said, as if having to start all over again. "We're at the squishy end of an already squishy diagnosis." He throws it back at me, nonchalant. "Again, I can take it out, but I don't know what you want me to say." "I want you to say that you're not going to rule out the gallbladder surgery and just send me back out there with everyone else! No one is trying to help me solve this, and I can't take it anymore!" I could hear the desperation leaking out. "I'm sorry you feel that way," he said. We sat there glaring at each other. "I'm not leaving," I said loudly. "I am not leaving until you send me for another test." "Okay. Fine," he said, and he rolled his eyes. "Okay." He wrote a note to authorize a CT scan, and I felt only relieved annoyance. They would find something simple and that would be the end of it. I'd just have to schedule my life around a surgery, nothing major. I am at the office, pacing at my treadmill desk and flipping through my latest research, when my phone rings. "Hello, this is Kate." It's Jan from the doctor's office. She has a little speech prepared, but my mind is zeroing in and out. I can hear that she is talking, but I can't make out the words. It is not my gallbladder, I catch that much. But now it is everywhere. "What's everywhere now?" I ask. "Cancer." I listen to the buzz of the phone. "Ms. Bowler." I absentmindedly put it back up to my ear. "Yes?" "We're going to need you to come in to the hospital right away." "Sure, sure." I need to call Toban. "Ma'am?" "No, sure. I get it. I'll be right there." "I'll send someone down to the lobby to get you. "Ma'am?" "Sure, sure," I say, almost inaudibly. "I have a son. It's just that I have a son." There is a long silence. "Yes," she says, "I'm sorry." She pauses. I picture her, standing near an office phone riffling through charts. Likely there are more people to call. "But we're going to need you to come in." "Is God good? Is God fair?" A hulking Norwegian asked me this once in the line at my college cafeteria. "I think so," I said. "But it's seven a.m. and I'm starving." But now I wonder. Does God even care? One of my favorite stories told by prosperity preachers comes from one of the original televangelism duos, Gloria Copeland and her husband, Kenneth. Gloria, who, even at seventy-­something, looks like a glamour-­puss real estate agent, and her husband, a true Texan, who always looks like he has strolled in after a leisurely day at the ranch. For decades, they have saturated prime-­time television and the Christian bookstore shelves with teachings on living the abundant life. They don't expect God simply to be fair--­they expect God to rain down blessings. So when a tornado threatened to destroy their home, said Gloria, they crept in the night to their porch to face down the storm. They prayed loud and long that God would protect their property and, for good measure, commanded God to protect their neighbors' houses, too. And so, they said, the storm turned and went another way. It is an image I cannot forget: two of the world's wealthiest Christians shaking their fists at the sky, protesting to the God of Fair. After all, what father, when his child asks for bread, would give him a stone? Fairness is one of the most compelling claims of the American Dream, a vision of success propelled by hard work, determination, and maybe the occasional pair of bootstraps. Wherever I have lived in North America, I have been sold a story about an unlimited horizon and the personal characteristics that are required to waltz toward it. It is the language of entitlements. It is the careful math of deserving, meted out as painstakingly as my sister and I used to inventory and trade our Halloween candy. In this world, I deserve what I get. I earn my keep and keep my share. In a world of fair, nothing clung to can ever slip away. I got married at twenty-­two, when I was especially dumb. I wasn't dumb to marry Toban, exactly, because that ended up being one of the most sensible things I've ever done. But I was probably pretty dumb because I didn't yet realize that Toban was one of those great investment pieces that increase in value but seem like overkill. He was like beachfront property when I probably could have settled for a suburban condo. At the time, however, I mostly thought about how beautiful he was, how great he was at explaining the finer points of skateboarding, and how he would never lose his hair. Now he rushes into my office and throws his arms around my neck, and all my words are pouring out. "I have loved you forever. I have loved you forever. Please take care of our son." "I will! I will!" he cries, and I know it is true. But the truth is not going to help us anymore. I call my parents on the walk to the hospital, but I have to stop and lean against a high stone wall for a minute. Toban puts his hand on my back to steady me. We are both gone, gone, gone somewhere else, flitting back and forth between now and where we used to be. I tell my parents they need to find a place to be together and sit down, that I have been told that I have cancer and that it doesn't look good for me. "You need to give Zach to us! You have to change your will!" my mom blurts out, her voice shaking. I have been, coincidentally, drawing up a living will for my life insurance policy, a policy I will be denied because they will find out that I have cancer and reject the claim, a bet they no longer want to take. But right now my mother is confused. Her child is dying and suddenly, so is the whole world. She is desperate to salvage what is left of my life: my son. Excerpted from Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.