IVP - Behind the Books - February 2011 Archives

eBooks are Here!

With the recent launch of the Google Bookstore, we’re pleased to offer you an additional venue to find all of your favorite IVP ebooks. We now have over 250 titles available, including classics, such as The Universe Next Door and Too Busy Not to Pray, and newer releases, such as The Leadership Ellipse, Justification and Mobilizing Hope.

According to director of digital publishing, Sally Craft, “We are making available as many of our titles in as many digital formats and through as many resellers as possible—including at our IVP Online webstore—so that customers can choose how they’d like to read our books.”

For Amazon’s Kindle, for instance, you’ll find over 600 titles ranging from new releases, such as The Accidental Anglican, Defending Constantine and The Dangerous Act of Loving Your Neighbor, to popular books that have been around for a while, such as Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes and Know What You Believe.

We’ve recently partnered with ChristianBook.com to make their books available in ePub format. Current titles available include a variety of ministry resources, such as The Big Book on Small Groups, The Glory of Preaching and Sustainable Youth Ministry.

We're also teaming up with ReadHowYouWant to offer 63 titles for large-print, Braille and DAISY print-on-demand editions. “Partnering with ReadHowYouWant allows us to make our books accessible in formats we are not able to publish on our own, and we are excited about expanding the ministry of our books to a wider audience,” notes International Rights Manager Ellen Hsu.

Complete details of all our digital offerings can be found at Ye Olde eBook Shoppe.

Happy eReading!

-The Behind the Books Team

The Artistry of Michael Card, the Gospel According to St. Luke

**Thanks to Jeff Crosby, IVP’s Director of Sales and Marketing, for this BTB post.

With some artists it’s the melody you remember. With others, it’s the words.

Sitting in my off-campus apartment nearly three decades ago during Eastertide, listening for the first time to a song titled “Love Crucified Arose,” it was the words that penetrated and left an indelible imprint. As the vinyl rotated on the turntable, I heard lyrics that spoke of a grave becoming a place of hope; of a Risen One in splendor who had won a victory; of one who had drunk from a crimson cup so that I might really live.

I was new to the Christian tradition, confused; yearning for answers and hoping I’d found at least some of them.

And I was encountering, for the first time, the artistry of Michael Card—a gift from my future mother-in-law in the form of a record called Legacy.

Over the succeeding 30 years, I’ve followed the work of this Nashville-born singer/songwriter and author. His craft has been found on more than two dozen recordings and 10 books, virtually all of which focus on the centrality of the Word, the Incarnation of Christ, and the truth of the story of the Risen One who was Satan’s “nail-pierced casualty.”

It’s the beginning of Advent, 2010, and I’m no longer in an off-campus apartment. Instead, I’m sitting on the floor of Mole End Studio on the outskirts of Franklin, Tennessee, with Holly Benyousky and Ron Davis, the executive producers of a new recording called Luke: A World Turned Upside Down.

The recording’s engineer, Keith Compton, cues up each of the 11 songs that will become the companion compact disc to the first book in InterVarsity Press’s Biblical Imagination Series—Luke: The Gospel of Amazement.

Track-by-track, Compton pushes brightly-colored buttons and plays the songs—“The Bridge,” “A Breath of a Prayer,” “The Pain and Persistence of Doubt,” “A King in a Cattle Trough.” At the conclusion of each song, Card explains how the lyrics were borne out of his reading of Luke’s “upside-down” gospel and his desire for readers—and listeners—to grapple with and understand this amazing message of the “rabbi who astounded his hearers with parables and paradoxes.”

As the final measures of “Seven Endless Miles,” a song that portrays Jesus’ encounter with the forlorn people on the Emmaus road (Luke 24:13-35), fade away, Holly, Ron and I look at one another with a smile.

The melodies are good. But it’s the words, once again, that leave the lasting impression; the words that seek to help us understand the Word who became flesh.

In an act of community, IVP and Covenant Artists, Card’s music company, have forged an alliance that has brought Card’s exploration of the Gospel of Luke—in book and music form—under a single point of distribution via InterVarsity Press. Books on the other three gospels will follow between 2012 and 2014, all from IVP. And companion recordings, too, will be crafted at Mole End Studio.

The Behind the Books team invites you to join us on the journey of the biblical imagination, both written and recorded, “whether it is the poetry of the psalms, the imagery of the prophets or the luminous parables of Jesus.” As Michael has said elsewhere, “There is joy in the journey.”

Book Tour

Thanks to Kent Annan, author of "After Shock," for this guest post to BTB.

I’m starting a book tour for After Shock in a few days. I’ll be in 19 cities in February and March. Here are some thoughts on book tours, bullet-point-style. Because in the midst of finalizing details this week, my brain is functioning as bullet-points, not as narrative.

• I’m excited. I wrote After Shock during the most intense work year of my life as we were responding to the Haiti earthquake. It’s more than a bit audacious to write a book about faith, doubt, God, suffering, and hope. Big topics, to say the least. I’m grateful for how it came out, but it of course doesn’t provide the definitive answers on this. (Wait, badly said! We would we sell more books if we did provide the definitive answers…okay, all those big questions are answered in seven easy steps and only 129 pages!) Anyway, the book is honest and raw, with inspiring stories—and it’s all a conversation with you (the reader) and conversation/protest with God. I hope this tour will continue the conversation so I can learn from you along the way.




• One has to be somewhat of an introvert to write this kind of book. But in February and March, I’ll be embracing the 30% of me that is an extrovert and sucking the marrow out (in a good way, I hope, you know, like Dead Poets Society). I like retreating, but also connecting.




• The details. Whew. Details of getting a sentence just right, finding the word, keeping a narrative pace, structuring the book: yes. Details of flights and rentals and hotels: not as much fun.




• A snowstorm is moving into Chicago as I type this. So I look at my calendar over the next two months and wonder what kind of dummy who lives in South Florida plans a book tour to many cold places in February and March? Answer: me.




• The differences between writing and speaking intrigue me. Some things that are really intimate seem right on the page. . . but don’t seem right to speak on a stage. And other stories that I quickly go over in the book that seem to demand more attention when speaking. I’m interested in exploring and understanding this more.




• I enjoy speaking to people who haven’t read the book yet—and also to people who have. The conversations start in different places, but always seem to lead in interesting directions.




• I remember Bono saying something like, “We need to have 12 great songs to convince us to leave our families and go out on the road again.” Well, I’m sure 5-star hotels, private jets, and tens of millions of dollars in profits don’t hurt U2’s motivation. But leaving family is by far the worst part of this, so I really resonate with what he’s saying. After Shock feels like a book worth going out there with.




• I hope to see you soon.

Tour locations and dates

Purchase After Shock

Connect with Kent on twitter or facebook for updates along the tour.