Intro to God
'Dummies' and 'Idiot's' religion books prove smart bet for publishers
06:16 PM CST on Friday, November 25, 2005
By SAM HODGES
The Dallas Morning News

Why would publishers risk offending deeply pious or intellectually prickly Americans with book titles such as The Koran for Dummies and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jesus?
It's the economy, stupid.

Religion books are big business, and time has shown there's a market for mildly irreverent, user-friendly guides to the major faiths, sacred texts, crucial figures such as Jesus and the Buddha, and related topics such as fasting, prayer and meditation. Most readers don't seem to mind that a Dummies book on a holy book comes in the same format as those for operating Windows XP, building a deck or improving one's sexual technique.

John Trigilio hears about once a month from older Catholics upset that he and fellow priest Kenneth Brighenti wrote Catholicism for Dummies . Far more often, he hears back positively from readers in and outside the faith.

And there are a lot of them. The rest