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{mosimage} by Peter G. Brown and Geoffrey Garver (Berrett-Koehler, softcover, 216 pages, $21.95).

Reading Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy in Kenya is a powerful experience. Right and wrong relationship live side-by-side here — in technicolour. Wrong relationship is vividly illustrated by slums with no electricity or running water bumping up against the gates of the manicured lawns of this country������Ƶapp elite.

Right relationship, as defined by the authors, “tends to preserve the integrity, resilience and beauty of the commonwealth of life.” The term������Ƶapp early Quaker usage is expanded to incorporate scientific and economic concepts that more clearly illustrate what “integrity, resilience and beauty” look like — or how they are violated — in today������Ƶapp world.

American Babylon: Notes of a Christian Exile, by Richard John Neuhaus (Basic Books, hardcover, 288 pages, $31).

You won’t enjoy American Babylon if (a) you’re not loyal American, (b) you didn’t support the Bush administration agenda, or (c) you can get through your day without a pressing need to disparage the philosophy of Richard Rorty and other “liberal ironists.”

The book������Ƶapp title is provocative in itself — as was its author, the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. The historic Babylon is located just outside Baghdad, where there is nothing more than a series of mounds and ruins, the place having been destroyed by the armies of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. Babylon is mentioned many times and in several symbolic ways in the Bible. ������Ƶapp 600 years before Christ, the Babylonian dynasty attacked the kingdom of Judah, captured Jerusalem and exiled the Israelites.

{mosimage} by Eric Reinhold (Creation House, 227 pages, hardcover $17.99).

There is no shortage of quest-oriented books on the market today, each with its own unlikely heroes struggling against all odds to reach their final goal. With Ryann Watters and the King������Ƶapp Sword, author Eric Reinhold has also entered into this popular realm of adventure and suspense, but with a supernatural twist. 

{mosimage}TORONTO - Young children������Ƶapp experiences can have a lasting influence on their lives. For Craig Kielburger, his first trip to help children in South Asia at the age of 12 was such an experience, and he has chronicled it in a children������Ƶapp book called It Takes A Child.

Kielburger is the founder and chair of , a Toronto-based organization that aims to eliminate poverty and exploitation of children around the world through education and social programs, such as Adopt A Village. This program allows families that are confronted with poverty a chance to break out and live successfully, building schools and establishing health clinics among other things.

{mosimage}The Acceptable Year of the Lord: Preaching the Old Testament with Faith, Finesse and Fervour by Karen Hamilton (Novalis, softcover, 475 pages, $35).

I am comfortable speaking to the teaching and miracles of Jesus and I am pretty confident in recounting the stories of the Acts of the Apostles and Paul������Ƶapp journeys. Like many other Roman Catholic preachers, I would rather be afflicted by one of the plagues that visited Pharaoh than attempt to demonstrate competency in speaking about the people, places and things of the Old Testament. 

Further to this, I find making connections between God������Ƶapp chosen nomadic people and the families with whom I worship difficult.

{mosimage} by Emmanuel Katongole with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (Harper Collins/Zondervan, softcover, 176 pages, $16.99).

by Catherine Claire Larson (Harper Collins/Zondervan, softcover, 284 pages, $16.99).

The slaughter lasted for 100 days in the spring of 1994. Some 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered — neighbours, friends, classmates.

Lay Germans often said they did not know what took place in the Nazi death camps. Certainly, though, all Rwandans knew about the genocide occurring in front of them. As a nation, they either swung machetes — one by one, face to face, slashing and severing — or they were victims.

{mosimage}  by Raoul W. Adamchak and Pamela C. Ronald (Oxford University Press, hardcover, 208 pages, $31.95).

Is your future food going to be organic, genetically engineered or both?

Organic farming and genetic engineering are ultimately a conflict of two world views. Organic agriculture uses the cycles of nature to its advantage and avoids problems by using farm practices such as a more complex rotation system of crops and a low number of animals in a confined space. Biotechnology is locked in the old paradigm of “controlling nature” and is designed to fix problems which often occur because of industrial farming practices. Organic farming is based on biodiversity. Biotechnology, by its very nature, reduces the number of varieties of crops grown and threatens genetic diversity. 

{mosimage}Making Sense of God by Elizabeth Dreyer, Grieving with Grace by Dolores R. Leckey, Living a Spirituality of Action by Joan Mueller (St. Anthony������Ƶapp Messenger Press, soft cover, $11.95 each).

“Shall we accept merely what is good from God and not accept also what is bad?” (Job 2:10).

Since he first courageously formulated it, Job������Ƶapp question has been asked again and again by human beings finding it difficult to embrace pain and suffering. Catholics have found inspiration in Job������Ƶapp unwavering loyalty and love for God and have tried to imitate his lack of hatred and anger.

{mosimage} by Jason Brian Santos (InterVarsity Press, 203 pages, softcover, $16.99).

A Community Called Taizé teaches the reader the history of Taizé, an ecumenical community in the Burgundy region of France.

This well-written history, by Jason Brian Santos, begins by explaining the author������Ƶapp arrival in Taizé in 2005 and how he adapts to the unfamiliar community. Taizé is a community of prayer, worship and reconciliation where Christians from all over the world are welcome to visit. Taizé prayers consist of music and worship sung in various languages, with lyrics inspired by the simple phrases from psalms and other Scripture.