Margaret Watts and Robyn Priestley at the launch of Dearest Folks

Avondale authors sell well

Friday, December 2, 2016
Alumni and academics on top 20 book list

Avondale alumni and academics fill eight of the top 20 places on a list of bestsellers through Adventist Book Centres in Australia and New Zealand.

The list reflects sales of Seventh-day Adventist books for the 12 months to October 31. It appears in Signs Publishing’s monthly Bookshelf tomorrow (December 3).

At number one on the list is Dearest Folks: Letters Home From A Missionary Wife and Mother by alumna Margaret Watts. The book set attendance and sales records at its launch on Avondale College of Higher Education’s Lake Macquarie campus in May. More than 250 people attended. Almost all wanted to take Watts home, buying 176 copies of her book. Dearest Folks compiles almost 100 of the letters Watts sent home to family in Australia between 1956 and 1966. They give a sense of immediacy to and an unselfconscious account of family life and medical crises and treatments at the Redcliffe Mission Station on Aobe in Vanuatu and at the Inus Mission Station on Bougainville in Papua New Guinea.

Avondale Seminary Head Dr Kayle de Waal’s Ancient Words, Present Hope: What the Old Testament Teaches Us About Revelation is at three. de Waal launched the book at Avondale in August last year but toured with it to Melbourne in March this year. The tour included presentations at a seminar for Adventist Book Centre managers and a one-day symposium at a local Adventist church. Conferences of the Adventist Church in Australia purchased copies for their annual conventions and the head office of the church in the South Pacific purchased copies for its Week of Spiritual Emphasis.

At six on there list: what is thought to be the first book published by Signs from a Papua New Guinean. Pastor Zuzai Hizoke wrote Keeping Connection: Rediscovering the Power of Prayer over 10 years. He bound an earlier version of the book himself, leading prayer seminars and selling copies to help fund postgraduate study at Avondale. Hizoke graduated with a Master of Arts (Theology) in 2009. He is now secretary of the Adventist Church on Bougainville.

Young adult novel Summer Fades by alumna Amanda Bews is at eight. A teacher by training, Bews writes about issues and choices. This follow up to Heaven Sent explores anorexia and abuse.

Rebellion and Redemption by Dr David Tasker is at 10. The Acting Head of Avondale Seminary wrote the companion book to the first quarter Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide in 2014, two years after writing the lessons for the guide. The book and the lessons explore the biblical foundations of the Great Controversy.

Books by two alumni who are former magazine editors, Drs Bruce Manners and William Johnsson, are at 16 and 18.

Retirement Ready? Plan Now to Retire Well began with a suggestion from a group of literature evangelists—they wanted a book for people in the over-50 age group. Manners, a former Editor-in-Chief at Signs, also wanted a writing project while he considered his plans for retirement. The book is one of the few to take a whole-of-life approach to retirement.

The Adventist Church’s Biblical Research Institute commissioned the two-volume Jesus of Nazareth to serve as a textbook for Bible and Christian studies classes in church higher education providers. But the style of Johnsson’s writing—he is the former Editor of the church’s flagship journal Adventist Reviewmakes the book more devotional than informational.

The Man the Anzacs Revered by Associate Professor Daniel Reynaud, Assistant Dean (Learning and Teaching) in the Faculty of Arts, Nursing and Theology, rounds out the top 20. Released last year and now in its second printing and second year on this list, the biography tells the story of a chaplain—William “Fighting Mac” McKenzie—worshipped by soldiers despite being a wowser.

Each of the books, even though they range in genre, subject and style, “represents deep engagement with its subject matter, academically or personally, often both,” says Signs Book Editor Nathan Brown. They are selling in part because readers “appreciate books that are more connected to our part of the world, whether by stories, authors or ideas.”

And what of the Avondale connection? “We might despair that the world doesn’t need any more books—anyone with a to-read stack can feel that frustration,” says Brown, “but the world always needs more good books that address issues of life and faith in fresh and creative ways. The key to good writing is good thinking and quality education is a helpful tool in these tasks.”

Buy the books

Buy all of the books mentioned above from Adventist Book Centres in Australia and New Zealand or from hopeshop.com.

hopeshop.com

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Brenton Stacey
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Brenton Stacey

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Brenton is Avondale University’s Public Relations and Philanthropy Officer. He brings to the role experience as a communicator in publishing, media relations, public relations, radio and television, mostly within the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific and its entities.