- About the Book

MALE MENOPAUSE
by Jed Diamond
Published by Sourcebooks, Inc.

Exhaustively researched and written with heart, author Jed Diamond shows that male menopause is indeed a medical, psychological, and emotional reality for millions of men and the women who love them. Much more than a mere midlife crisis, male menopause involves dramatic chemical and psychological changes that affect everything from a man's view on life to his ability to attain and maintain an erection.

In this groundbreaking, authoritative book, Diamond surveys the most current medical data surrounding men's health and listens to men's stories as they struggle to understand what they are going through. From the doctor's office to the bedroom, "Male Menopause" addresses the important issues men and women face, including:

• Surprising parallels between female and male menopause
  
• Remarkable, easy-to-follow anti-aging techniques
  
• The profound effect of male menopause on sex and marriage
  
• The most recent advances in hormone replacement therapy
  
• Aging as mentors and role models in today's society
  
• The trauma of erection dysfunction and impotence

Today, after years of jokes about the male "midlife crisis" (red hot Corvettes and Barbie sidekicks), male menopause is recognized as a true event, occurring in millions of men between the ages of forty and fifty-five. "Male Menopause" is at the forefront of the movement toward better men's health, bringing understanding to the changes men go through at midlife. Diamond shows us all how to survive the dropping hormone production, diminishing sexual vigor, and frequent mood swings of menopause. And, most importantly, he reveals how to find purpose and meaning in our middle years and arrive healthy and happy in the second half of life.

Copyright ©1998 by Jed Diamond and Sourcebooks, Inc. All rights reserved. Please request permission from the publisher before duplicating or distributing this file. Thank you.

- About the Book

MY FAITH SO FAR
A Story of Conversion and Confusion
by Patton Dodd
Published by Jossey-Bass, An Imprint of Wiley
(ISBN: 0-7879-6859-5, 208 pages, hardcover, $21.95)
Available from this site or directly from the publisher:
http://www.josseybass.com/

"Honesty is a rare commodity. Sometimes it's rarest in the world of religion. Like the blues in music, there's something oddly uplifting about it. Patton Dodd offers an honest and engaging reflection of his experience in the world of charismatic Christianity -- poignant, even painful, yet somehow uplifting. Whatever your religious background, you'll learn here, and perhaps be nudged toward greater honesty in your own spiritual search."
-- Brian McLaren, pastor, author of A New Kind of Christian

"Patton Dodd's memoir is the most honest account of the constant conversions, backslides, and rebirths of a life of faith that I have read in years. In its acknowledgment that the intellect, too, can be a path to salvation, My Faith So Far brings to mind the classics of spiritual memoir genre, perhaps especially The Seven Storey Mountain. In fact, if the evangelical world is in need of its own Merton, a young writer willing to keep his wit sharp while searching for both sustenance and relevance in his faith, Dodd might be the man for the job."
-- Peter Manseau, coauthor of Killing the Buddha: A Heretic's Bible

"My Faith So Far is at once feisty and irreverent, rebellious and tender… Patton Dodd is an evangelical trying to break free from the superficiality and smugness of his subculture, but he is never more evangelical than in his pursuit of this struggle. This book is an urgent dispatch from the cutting edge of religious and cultural change. This is news."
-- Gregory Wolfe, Editor, Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion

In this frank, funny, and often challenging memoir about life in and out of the church, twenty-something Patton Dodd reveals his quest for an authentic experience of God. On his journey he attempts to pinpoint and justify his belief in God, first with the fervent absolutes that characterize a new believer's faith but then with a growing awareness of the cultural complexities that define his faith and encompass his understanding of Christianity.

When a spiritual awakening in his last year of high school wrenches Dodd out of his rebellious party days, he embarks on a quest for God. He exchanges pot smoking for worship dancing, gives up MTV for Christian pop, and enrolls at a Christian university. Soon, however, he finds himself ill at ease with the other Christians around him and with the cloying superficiality of the Christian subculture. Dodd tells his story in contradictory terms -- conversion and confusion, acceptance and rejection, spiritual highs and psychological lows. With painstaking honesty, he tries to negotiate a relationship with his faith apart from the cultural trappings that often clothe it.