God's Confidants

STANDING ALONE IN MECCA: AN AMERICAN WOMAN'S STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF ISLAM , by Asra Q. Nomani (HarperSanFrancisco, $24.95). The author, a print and broadcast journalist, knew she was at risk in 2003 when she went on hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, with her 4-month-old son in her arms. Under Saudi law, Nomani could be stoned if anyone discovered that she had the child out of wedlock. The authorities never found out and Nomani remained free to experience her own revelations, including a feeling of oneness with another unwed mother and pilgrim to Mecca, Hagar, the mother of Islamic patriarch Ishmael. The journey emboldened Nomani to challenge attitudes toward women in her home mosque in West Virginia.

STANDING IN THE WHIRLWIND: THE RIVETING STORY OF A PRIEST AND THE CONGREGATIONS THAT TORMENTED HER , by Nancy C. James (Pilgrim Press, $24). James's unusual story of being a priest who was harassed, stalked and threatened, apparently by her own parishioners, was chronicled in a 1994 Washington Post story. She recounts here in greater detail the traumatic experience at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Rapidan, Va., along with other troubled yet fulfilling stops on her priestly journey, as an English teacher at Lorton Reformatory and pastor of Christ Church in Brandy Station. She is now priest associate at St. John's Episcopal Church Lafayette Square in Washington.

SWIMMING WITH SCAPULARS: TRUE CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG CATHOLIC , by Matthew Lickona (Loyola Press, $19.95). Lickona, 32, is a writer for an alternative newspaper in San Diego, a devotee of the Onion Web site and a wine connoisseur. This Gen-Xer is also a traditional Catholic who wears a scapular, a sacramental object worn around the neck to protect the wearer from damnation, and he believes that sex is primarily for procreation. In this small book, Lickona tells of periods of doubt but ultimate adherence to the faith.

THINGS OF THE HIDDEN GOD: JOURNEY TO THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, by Christopher Merrill (Random House, $24.95). Mount Athos in northern Greece is more peninsula than mountain, but for many Christians, it offers the peak spiritual experience, a place where occasional visitors -- no women allowed -- find solace in the simple but rigorous routine within 20 ancient monasteries. Merrill, a poet, writing teacher and literary critic, entered Athos in 1998 after covering the Balkan wars as a journalist. It was a pilgrimage "into the world of last things," he writes, a 40-day evaluation of his life, his hopes, his failures, his dreads and his faith. Emboldened and refreshed by the experience, he returned to face the world of now.