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Announcing.... The Unitarian Life

Well, it's been a long time coming, but my book, the Unitarian Life, has finally been published. The first 50 copies made it to the Annual Meetings and sold out, which I'm really happy about.

What is it? Well, it's an anthology of short texts 99% of which were written by Unitarians, Universalists or Unitarian Universalists. It's not a historical book, although it does contain writing going back five centuries. It's a book that helps people to answer the question - what is Unitarianism? - not by giving one answer, but by giving 300 answers! And it answers the question not only by trying to define Unitarianism but also by talking about Unitarian attitudes to sex, death, God, friendship, justice, love, spirituality, peace - in other words, life.

It comes out of a conviction that Unitarianism is not just a blank slate onto which we can paint anything, but a living, breathing spiritual tradition that it worth celebrating.

You can get copies from Essex Hall, Amazon UK and possibly Amazon USA. I would hope we'll be able to get some over to the UUA Bookstore as well, but I'll have to chase that one up.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Stephen, congratulations on getting your book published!
Just ordered my copy ^_^
All the best from Japan!
Andrew Bethune said…
Will buy a copy as soon as I can organise myself.
Congratulations! I particularly like your affirmation that "Unitarianism is not a blank slate... but a living spiritual tradition". I wholeheartedly agree, although I am not convinced that everybody does (including many among ourselves).
Yewtree said…
I've been reading it, and I think it's marvellous. I agreed with about 99% of it, and found it very inspiring. A wonderful idea.
Thanks Yewtree, you couldn't put that comment on the Amazon page could you? I'm told it helps a lot with sales. (By the way I'm getting no money from the sales, so I'm promoting it purely for it's own sake, not for financial gains!).
Yewtree said…
Oh alright then :)

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