Happy New Year!

   New Years is a vaguely universal concept - I say vaguely because of the various different countries that celebrate on days all over the Gregorian calendar typically used. The Chinese New Year, based on the lunar calendar, can be anywhere from January to February, the Jewish calendar celebrates Rosh Hashanah in the northern hemisphere's autumn, during the first two days of the seventh month of the Jewish calendar. Hijri New Year is the Islamic New Year, celebrated on the first day of Muharram - the first month of the Islamic calendar. Thailand celebrates Songkran in April, Ethiopia calls theirs Enkutatash, the "gift of jewels" in September, and those are just a few of them.


   For those of us using the modern Gregorian Calendar, January 1st is our New Year's day based all the way back on the Julian Calendar of pre-Christian Rome, when the month of January was named after the Roman god of gateways and beginnings, Janus.

   Many of our customers at the House of James like to bring in the new year with a new daily devotional from our extensive section. We have a few new devotionals, as well as older releases and classics like My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers (Classic and Updated editions, both). Brand new from the last couple of months, The One Year daily devotionals bring you Daily Moments of Peace: Inspiration for Women and its partner, Daily Moments of Strength: Inspiration for Men.

   In the spirit of new releases as well, The Passion Translation Bible that has been coming out book-by-book for the past couple of years has a 2-in-1, 31 day, Psalms and Proverbs Devotional. Read this as a partner to your Passion Translation New Testament, or with any other translation of the Bible to compare, contrast, or offer a fresh perspective.






   Timothy Keller, author of New York Times Bestselling books, The Prodigal God and Prayer also brings us a new devotional this year - God's Wisdom for Navigating Life. His is a book of daily devotions for the year, focusing on the book of Proverbs.

   We have a wide variety of devotionals here at the store, from authors such as Max Lucado, Joyce Meyer, Charles Spurgeon, Joni Eareckson Tada, Beth Moore, Billy Graham, Chris Tiegreen, Sarah Young, Nancy Guthrie, Jonathan Cahn, and many more.

   Come visit the store, or shop online on our website, and start your new year off with a little literature for the soul.



For more information on these books, visit our website here.
Daily Moments of Peace: Inspiration for Women
Daily Moments of Strength: Inspiration for Men
Psalms and Proverbs Devotional
God's Wisdom for Navigating Life 

Sources:
http://earthsky.org/earth/why-does-the-new-year-begin-on-january-1
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Janus-Roman-god
https://patch.com/michigan/bloomfield-mi/5-97364391
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/11-cultures-that-don-t-celebrate-new-year-s-day-on-jan-1

The Knowing

   The Forgetting, the first book in this series by Sharon Cameron, and The Knowing, its sequel, flow into one another with a seamless kind of irony. Seamless and cruel, in the best possible way.

   The two books are a part of a series. It is not necessary to read them in order, but I would recommend it. Both are a part of a post-apocalyptic world, separated by quite a few years. The Knowing references several characters from The Forgetting, but they are not a part of the story itself.

   The Knowing has all of the Young Adult Fiction elements that made me fall in love with The Forgetting, but even more than that, the irony of each main character's goal and the way Sharon Cameron portrays them from the first book to the second provide an additional element. The Forgetting is all about not having memory, and The Knowing is about having too many memories. The two books are a pendulum swing, wherein the main characters strive to bring that pendulum to rest somewhere in the middle, and the journey they take to get there is fraught with danger, drama, suspicion, and emotion. In other words, absolutely delicious (especially for my teenage heart).

--Elise T--

For more information on The Knowing by Sharon Cameron, visit our website here.