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Lived Religion (2008)
Published
Meredith McGuire describes a Catholic schoolteacher whose home altar brings together the Virgin of Guadalupe, Frida Kahlo, votive candles, and healing crystals. Start here for a way to notice the choices a person makes at home and in the neighborhood that a survey about attendance might miss.
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The Varieties of Religious Experience (1817)
7.1/10on Open Library
Published
William James makes room for experiences that can sit uneasily in the same account of religion. His lectures put the religious optimism of healthy-minded believers beside accounts of melancholy and the need for deliverance. The examples are a good place to start if you want to see why a single definition of religious experience can be hard to sustain.
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A little history of religion (2016)
8.0/10on Open Library
Published
Richard Holloway moves quickly between traditions and gives enough history to see how they acquired different institutions and divisions. Keep it nearby when you need to place a figure or movement before going deeper. The very short chapters are useful for orientation, and you can follow up on the places where a compressed history leaves questions.
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God Is Not One (2010)
6.0/10on Open Library
Published
Stephen Prothero compares the problems different traditions take to be central and the practices they offer in response. The book gives an interested newcomer a way to hear why a shared word can have different weight in two settings. Its categories work best as questions to bring to more specific books.
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Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes (2013)
Published
Nancy Tatom Ammerman listens as Americans describe what feels spiritual at dinner, at work, or at the doctor’s office. Their stories include people with strong ties to a congregation and people with no affiliation. Read it for the way ordinary exchanges with others can give otherwise private experiences a recognizable language.
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A new religious America (2001)
Published
Diana L. Eck traces changes in American religious life through the communities that built mosques, temples, and other places of worship. It is a useful history of how traditions take shape in a neighborhood. The book's moment of publication also makes it a way to see what kinds of religious diversity Americans were beginning to notice.
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The Hajj (1994)
Published
F. E. Peters follows the pilgrimage to Mecca through historical accounts by pilgrims and other observers. The changing conditions of the journey give you a way to see the labor and uncertainty behind a practice observed over many centuries. Begin here if you want the pilgrimage’s history and voices from the route.
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A History of Islam in 21 Women
Hossein Kamaly uses short biographies to bring women into the foreground of a history of Islam. The recurring shift from one place and century to another keeps the choices of a particular woman visible. Pick this up when you know the familiar outline and want to learn whose lives can redirect it.
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The Sabbath, its meaning for modern man (1977)
Published
Abraham Joshua Heschel describes the Sabbath as a way of making time holy. His argument gives you a language for what can happen when a weekly rhythm interrupts work and acquisition. Read it as a Jewish theologian's account of why the day matters, with the observance itself kept in view.
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Living a Jewish Life (1996)
Published
In this revised guide, Anita Diamant, with contributor Howard Cooper, explains Jewish holidays, home customs, and milestones with an eye to how people actually begin observing them. The choices families make matter here. This is a good companion to a more theological book if you want to know what preparing for a holiday or a life event can look like.
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The cloister walk (1996)
Published
Kathleen Norris reflects on time spent with Benedictine monks and the rhythm their prayers give to the day. Her ear for words is particularly useful when rereading a psalm or hearing it spoken in company. Choose this for the experience of letting a repeated practice change what you notice.
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The Book of Common Prayer Lives of Great Religious Books (2013)
Published
Alan Jacobs follows the Book of Common Prayer through revisions and disputes over what worshippers should say together. By treating a prayer book as an object with a history, he makes the shared words of Anglican worship feel newly consequential. Read it if you want to know what can change when a community changes its script.
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Lives of Great Religious Books13
The cross and the lynching tree (2011)
9.0/10on Open Library
Published
James H. Cone asks American Christians to read the cross alongside the history of lynching. His theological argument brings religious language into contact with violence that churches and worshippers had to confront. It is an especially demanding entry if you want to see what happens when a doctrine is tested against a country's history.
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When God talks back (2012)
8.0/10on Open Library
Published
T. M. Luhrmann spends time among evangelical Vineyard Christians who practice speaking to God and attending to what they understand as a response. Look for the work of learning to pray in this way. The book offers an anthropologist's account of how a way of paying attention becomes familiar.
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The heart of the Buddha's teaching (1998)
8.4/10on Open Library
Published
Thich Nhat Hanh connects Buddhist teachings such as the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path to the way people speak, listen, and attend to suffering. His explanations are best read slowly, alongside the ordinary situations they draw on. Start here for a teacher's account of what the teachings ask you to practice.
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What the Buddha taught (1959)
7.8/10on Open Library
Published
Walpola Rahula sets out the Four Noble Truths and early Buddhist teachings on the self and meditation, with selections from Buddhist texts. This is a useful first reading if you want to see how a practice follows from a claim about suffering. The source selections give you a way to continue beyond the explanation.
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An introduction to Hinduism (1996)
10.0/10on Open Library
Published
Gavin Flood sets descriptions of worship, ascetic practice, and devotion alongside the histories of texts and movements. Read him when a broad label such as Hinduism gives you too little sense of which tradition or practice is being discussed. The range helps you choose a narrower subject to follow.
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Sikhism (2005)
Published
Eleanor Nesbitt brings Sikh history and scripture into the settings where people worship and eat together. The shared meal in the gurdwara is a good example of the link between an idea and a practice that people organize and carry out. This is a compact first orientation with room for differences among communities.
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The Jains
Paul Dundas explains Jainism through its history and through the different obligations undertaken by laypeople and renunciants. His treatment of nonviolence becomes more interesting once you can see how its demands change with a person's commitments. Choose it for the context a bare summary of a principle leaves out.
More about The Jains20
The Taoist Body (1996)
Published
Kristofer Schipper takes Taoist ritual seriously as something people practice together. His account gives space to priests, local traditions, and the importance of the body in Taoist thought. It is a good choice if the short philosophical texts you have read leave you wondering how people live with those traditions.
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Shinto (2017)
Published
Helen Hardacre follows the changing relationships among shrines, public institutions, and the people devoted to them. The long historical view helps explain why a visit to a shrine can carry different meanings in different periods. Use it when you want the history behind a practice you may already recognize.
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