The Dude Abides
The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers

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Whether you've seen only a couple or every single one of their 14 films enough times to quote them by heart, you know Joel and Ethan Coen make movies like no one else in cinema. The Oscar-winning Coen brothers' quirky and enduring films are rich with meaning — much of it hidden just beneath the surface, gems of spiritual and existential insight waiting to be excavated. Join award-winning religion columnist Cathleen Falsani as she explores the deeper truths found in these engrossing movies. Falsani examines each of the Coen brothers' films, from their debut, Blood Simple, to their latest, A Serious Man. Ranging from iconoclastic comedies such as Raising Arizona and The Big Lebowski to an unblinking treatise on the nature of evil in No Country for Old Men, the Coen brothers have created moral universes in which some of life's essential questions are asked — if not always answered. By turns thought-provoking and entertaining, you'll come away with a new admiration for these sometimes bizarre, always clever, and unmistakably virtuoso filmmakers and their films.

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Sin Boldly
A Field Guide for Grace

Ranging from Chicago to Kenya, New Orleans to Ireland, Big Sky to Graceland, Cathleen dons her investigative cap and scouts for grace.  Eschewing technical theological definitions, this charming tour guide opts instead to tell how she has experienced grace. And we are vicarious travelers, seeing grace—"audacious, unwarranted, and unlimited"—through her eyes. She marvels at the devotion of young people who crowd to the pope’s funeral and at the astoundingly independent women of Asembo Bay in Kenya. She wrestles with anger at a misogynist Tanzanian tour guide and anger at God when her mother and beloved cat face cancer. We traipse along with the author and eavesdrop on her conversations, both external and internal. The result is a pastiche of images meant collectively to reveal God’s grace.

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The God Factor
Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People

To shape a candid picture of modern faith, Cathleen —who the Chicago Tribune praised as “above all, an exemplary conversationalist”—sat down with an array of people who shape our culture for exclusive, face-to-face conversations about faith, doubt, religion, belief and what gives life meaning. Included are interviews with Sherman Alexie, Bono, Dusty Baker, Sandra Bernhard, Sandra Cisneros, Billy Corgan, Kurt Elling, Laura Esquivel, Melissa Etheridge, Jonathan Safran Foer, Mike Gerson, Seamus Heaney, Hugh Hefner, Dr. Henry Lee, Annie Lennox, David Lynch, John Mahoney, Mark Morris, Mancow Muller, Senator Barack Obama, Hakeem Olajuwon, Harold Ramis, Anne Rice, Tom Robbins, Russell Simmons, Jeffrey Sachs, Barry Scheck, John Patrick Shanley, The Reverend Al Sharpton, Studs Terkel, Iyanla Vanzant, and Elie Wiesel.

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