Flunking Sainthood by Jana Riess

Flunking Sainthood by Jana Riess

This wry memoir tackles twelve different spiritual practices in a quest to become more saintly, including fasting, fixed-hour prayer, the Jesus Prayer, gratitude, Sabbath-keeping, and generosity. Although Riess begins with great plans for success (Really, how hard could that be? she asks blithely at the start of her saint-making year), she finds to her growing humiliation that she is failing--not just at some of the practices, but at every single one. What emerges is a funny yet vulnerable story of the quest for spiritual perfection and the reality of spiritual failure, which turns out to be a valuable practice in and of itself.

Jana Riess has worked in the publishing sector as an editor since 2008, specializing in religion, history, popular culture, ethics, and biblical studies. She was the Religion Book Review Editor for Publishers Weekly from 1999 to 2008, and she continues to write freelance reviews for PW and other publications. She has a Ph.D. in religion from Princeton Theological Seminary and a B.A. in religion from Wellesley College. Columbia University offers a master's degree in American religious history. She has been interviewed by the Associated Press, Time, Newsweek, People, the Boston Globe, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and Newsday, among other print publications, as well as Voice of America, the Today program, MSNBC, and NPR's All Things Considered, Tell Me More, and Talk of the Nation about problems relating to religion in America.

Many books, including The Prayer Wheel, Flunking Sainthood, and What Would Buffy Do?, have been written by her or co-written by her. Her book The Twible: All the Biblical Chapters in 140 Characters or Fewer is a collection of her writings.