LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY dabroots)

From today's Publishers Weekly Daily newsletter:

Skipping Toward Armageddon: The Politics and Propaganda of the Left Behind Novels and the LaHaye Empire by Michael Standaert, will offer both an exegesis of the book and a criticism of LaHaye's business and personal connections. "The Left Behind books are functioning not just like a Christian John Grisham but as a highly organized effective tool for evangelizing and generating a great deal of money to support a network of organizations that are doing a lot of things the booksellers wouldn't like," says Soft Skull publisher Richard Nash. "We want to be able to let independent bookstores know what is going on behind these books that they're selling."

Asked whether the booksellers who stock the book aren't already aware of, and have come to terms with, the contents of the book, Nash says that it will sway others with new facts about LaHaye, such as his connections to Jerry Falwell as well as with an organization to build a third temple at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

The book isn't the first anti-Left Behind title; there's a thrust-and-parry here similar to the Da Vinci Code. Palgrave Macmillan's Rapture, Revelation, and the End Times explored it last year and other books have been even more critical. Given Soft Skull's historical ability to create a ruckus, though, this may be the loudest criticism. Standaert is a left-leaning freelancer and blogger with an emphasis on European news.

At BEA, Soft Skull will hand out at a postcard that asks booksellers to move the books to the back of the stores; in his convention pitch, Nash will compare the books to some startling examples. "I want to persuade booksellers, at least in conversation, these books have more in common with The Turner Diaries and Mein Kampf than they do with The Purpose Driven Life and Tom Clancy," he says. A spokesperson for LaHaye says that because the author was not familiar with the details of the book he was declining comment.--Steven Zeitchik

excerpted from http://www.publishersweekly.com/index.asp?layout=eletters&industry=PW+Daily