A look not only at the inner man but also at the environments that shaped Leonard Cohen, from the rock scene of New York in the 1960s to the remote Zen monastery where Cohen spent years later in life.

Praised as "brilliantly revelatory...a masterful work of critical journalism" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), The Holy or the Broken is the fascinating account of one of the most-performed rock songs in history--Leonard Cohen's heartrending "Hallelujah." How did one obscure song become an international anthem for human triumph and tragedy, a song each successive generation seems to feel they have discovered and claimed as uniquely their own? Celebrated music journalist Alan Light follows the improbable journey of "Hallelujah" straight to the heart of popular culture.

Marking the fiftieth anniversary of Kazantzakis's death, author Darren J. N. Middleton looks back on Kazantzakis's life and literary art to suggest that, contrary to popular belief, Kazantzakis and his views actually comport with the ideals of Christianity.

Jack Butler’s Broken Hallelujah: New and Selected Poems is a celebration that refuses to explain away pain and trouble, or to oversell the very transcendence it seeks. Its poems are always musical, whether formal, improvisational, or written according to the music of speech itself. Butler understands poetry more nearly as the essence of that speech than as one of its products, the heart of the ways we know each other. Some of these forms are as old as English, but the voice stays immediate; and whether dark or hopeful, comic or sober, passionate or calm and knowing, these poems speak with the urgency of praise itself.

The losses in our lives are both big and small. We leave home. We experience physical illness. We struggle with vocation. We may long for a spouse or child. We lose people we love to addiction or death. In this book spiritual director Beth Slevcove offers stories of loss from her own life along with distinctive spiritual practices that can guide us back to God.

What happens when an evangelical hardliner falls in love with an intriguing woman from halfway around the world who challenges everything he believes? An American drug dealer radically turns to Jesus and joins a fundamentalist movement in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. A Swiss teacher is searching for meaning after a tragic loss and sets out on an adventure. When Justin and Sophie meet, the sparks fly-and their views about God clash. Justin's faith leaves no room for doubt, and Sophie's faith cannot tolerate absolutes. The two embark on an epic search for what it really means to follow Jesus. Their budding love is challenged by both their different views and by Justin's missionary zeal. He moves to the mission field in India only to find disillusion and betrayal where he least expected it. In the meantime, Sophie joins a contemplative community in the Swiss mountains to find peace and a faith that carries her. But they cannot forget the week that changed their lives. A Broken Hallelujah takes the reader on an adventurous spiritual journey across America, Europe, and Asia in search for life's deepest questions about faith, compassion, and the unifying love of God. This contemporary Christian novel with an international setting is both spiritual journey and an adventurous romance story. But beyond that it is a challenge to discover a faith that can withstand disillusionment, deconstruction and spiritual abuse. It is an invitation to follow Jesus with authenticity and humility and in doing so, discover the love of God that transcends any doctrine.

Following his successful book One Step Closer, Scharen shows how to engage faith and culture through popular music, including the blues, hip-hop, and rock.