Book Monger

One of the joys of being an academic is that you know lots of people who publish books. Sometimes you even get comped a copy. (If getting excited about a free academic book is not a sure sign I’m in the right field, I don’t know what is.) I don’t normally plug them here because they tend to be quite specific, and so I don’t think right for a general audience. However, my friend Eboo Patel, whom I’ve mentioned before, has a new book out, and I’m going to promote it here for several reasons:

1. It’s a good book on interfaith issues in practice.
2. He’s a sociologist, so he sees a lot of things that others miss, but he doesn’t write for an academic audience. Fundamentalism is a sociological problem, not a theological one.
3. It’s one of the best books about growing up Muslim in the US that I’ve read. It hits many of the problems and promises the current second-generation faces.
4. He had me read the manuscript, so I’m invested.

“Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of aGeneration” (Eboo Patel)

I’m also taking the liberty of pushing other books in which I’m thanked, but which are geared for a more specialized audience.

“The Ismailis in the Middle Ages: A History of Survival, a Search for Salvation” (Shafique N. Virani)

“Reliving Karbala: Martyrdom in South Asian Memory” (Syed Akbar Hyder)

“When Islam and Democracy Meet: Muslims in Europe and in the United States” (Jocelyne Cesari)

“Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context” (Robert Wisnovsky)

“Encountering Kali: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West” (University of California Press)

Another good friend has a book, but in which I get no love

“Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality, Modernity” (Faisal Devji)

Finally, if all goes according to plan, I’ll have about ten articles appearing in the following encyclopedia:

“Encyclopedia of Islam in the United States [Two Volumes]” (Greenwood Press)