Book News
Religion and sexuality
They are hiding in many bedrooms and in many major bookstores, unknown and unimagined by the public at large — Christian sex books.
Though the phrase may not seem likely, in fact, dozens of titles aimed at helping married couples achieve better intimacy or work on their sexual technique have filled shelves since the 1970s and, judging by the number of titles available, interest is not waning.
Amy DeRogatis, an associate professor of religion and American culture at Michigan State University, said she was surprised to find out how common such books were after a question by a student in a class on religion and sexuality prompted her to investigate the topic.
“Within the culture of evangelicalism these were very, very common,” she said in an interview, noting she was most surprised that many of titles were hiding in plain view at the neighborhood bookseller.
The books began to seriously appear in the 1970s about the time that sex manuals like “The Joy of Sex” were sprouting up in the general culture, said DeRogatis, who has published an article about the works in the academic journal Church History.
But the authors of the Christian sex guides saw many of these works — with their anything-goes attitude and assumption that most readers would have more than one partner — as out of line with a God-ordained view of sexuality.
First Lines
Death Angel by Linda Howard
“‘You did an excellent job,’ Rafael Salinas purred to the assassin, who stood on the other side of the room, near the door. Either the man didn’t like getting too close to other human beings, or he didn’t trust Salina and was giving himself an avenue of escape if the meeting turned sour — in which case he was smart. People who were wary of Salina tended to live longer than those who trusted him. Drea Sousseau, curled close to Salinas’s side, didn’t care what the assassin’s reasoning was, so long as it kept him at a distance.”
Audio bestsellers
Fiction
1. Odd Hours, by Dean Koontz
2. The Front, by Patricia Cornwell
3. Fearless Fourteen, by Janet Evanovich
4. Phantom Prey, by John Sandford
5. Sail, by Richard Patterson and Howard Roughan
6. Plague Ship, by Clive Cussler, with Jack Du Brul
7. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, by James Rollins
8. The Whole Truth, by David Baldacci
9. Swine Not, by Jimmy Buffett
10. Sundays at Tiffany’s, by Richard Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet
Nonfiction
1. When You Are Engulfed in Flames, by David Sedaris
2. The New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle
3. The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch
4. The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne
5. The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle
6. The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama
7. Audition: A Memoir, by Barbara Walters
8. Become a Better You, by Joel Osteen
9. John Adams, by David McCullough
10. I Am America (And So Can You!), by Stephen Colbert
Publishers Weekly
