Pop Matters Praises Believer, Beware

Oliver Ho gives Believer, Beware: First-Person Dispatches from the Margins of Faith, the new anthology from Killing the Buddha, a great review in Pop Matters.

Every story in this collection is fascinating, and every one is imminently quotable…. There’s no discernible structure to the collection, which gives the book less of an overall shape than The Heretic’s Bible, but that doesn’t take away from the cumulative power of the stories. At their best, it’s easy to imagine these essays as a film by Errol Morris, or as episodes of This American Life.

More than anything else, the collection gives the sense of how complex and vital the concept of spirituality is to everyday life, right down to the question of belief or non-belief. Thomas Merton wrote in his Thoughts In Solitude, “The spiritual life is first of all a life.” As simple as that sounds, it also creates a dilemma that can involve every aspect of day-to-day living, and these essays in Believer, Beware offer a fascinating exploration of that challenge.

Pop Matters gave it a whopping eight out of ten. Read the whole review here. Add this to earlier praise for Believer, Beware:

“Shocking, exhilarating, and never dull…. Highly recommended.” — Library Journal, starred review.

“Smart, candid, and insightful… The voices are refreshingly honest.” — Publishers Weekly

So, in case you meant to buy it and forgot, summer sand seeping into your brain, now is the time. Why not get a few extra, and you’ll be set for the holiday gift giving that is right around the next seasonal corner.