Introduction

Abstract

This book is a historical examination of selected popular religious books from the twentieth century, as well as the communities of readers and writers for whom they were important. It emphasizes the enduring importance of religious publishing in the history of print culture in twentieth-century America, and of religion in American literature more generally. Working at the intersection of three fields of scholarship—the history of the book, lived religion, and consumer culture—it shows how religious reading continues to shape the ideas and assumptions of millions of modern and contemporary Americans by citing works such as Charles Sheldon's In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do?, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, Kathleen Norris's The Cloister Walk, Thomas Moore's Care of the Soul, Bruce Barton's The Man Nobody Knows, Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking, and other religious self-help books authored by ministers, priests, and rabbis. The book also describes what it calls “middlebrow” reading of popular religious books.