Skinner House Books

The audiobook of The Release playing on a cell phone.

Did you know The Release: Creativity and Freedom After the Writing Is Done by Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew is available as an audiobook? Get your copy today from Libro.fm, Audible, or any other major audio platforms. And you can often request that your local library purchase a copy too!

How to Survive the Apocalypse First, learn to listen. Not only for enemies around corners in hidden places, but for the faint footsteps of hope and the whisper of resistance. Hone your skills, aim your heart toward kindness and stockpile second chances. Under the weight of destruction, we will need the strong shelter of forgiveness and the deeper wells that give the sweet water of welcome: “We have a place for you.” When the world ends, we must not add destruction to destruction, not accept a beggar’s bargain, to fight death with more death. In order to survive the apocalypse— any apocalypse at all— we have to give up the counterfeit currency of self- sufficiency, the mistaken addiction to competition, the lie that the last to die has somehow survived. —Rev. Sean Parker Dennison Breaking and Blessing: Meditations

How to Survive the Apocalypse

Hone your skills, aim your
heart toward kindness and
stockpile second chances.

—Rev. Sean Parker Dennison
Breaking and Blessing: Meditations

The ebook of Love at the Center open on a tablet. The tablet is on a green pillow.

“Given everything our world faces today, having faith in love is no small thing.” —Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt. May Love at the Center: Unitarian Universalist Theologies serve as an invitation to deepen your own understanding and practices of love. Available wherever books are sold.

A Fire at the Center audiobook playing on a cell phone.

Did you know A Fire at the Center: Solidarity, Whiteness, and Becoming a Water Protector by Karen Van Fossan is also available as an audiobook? Get your copy today from Libro.fm, Audible, or any other major audio platforms. And you can often request that your local library purchase a copy too!

Now your audiobook purchases will contribute directly to the work of the Unitarian Universalist Association to support our congregations. We invite you to explore their full collection of audiobooks—including a growing selection of Skinner House titles!

How does it work? You create a free account and choose inSpirit as the bookstore you’d like to support. You can sign up for a monthly membership or buy and listen to audiobooks on your own schedule with their a la carte options.

A person listening to an audiobook on their phone.

Did you know that there's an audiobook service that allows you to support an indie bookstore while listening to great audiobooks? It's called Libro.fm and inSpirit: The UU Book and Gift Shop is a partner bookstore!

The book Breaking and Blessing on top of some white rose petals that almost resemble fallen snowflakes.

In Breaking and Blessing, the 2020 volume of the inSpirit Poetry Series, Rev. Sean Parker Dennison imagines letters from angels, draws on the natural world, and reflects on love and calling. Available at shopinspirit.org.

A Prayer in February Dearest Lover, Only One, You, Sweet Holy One, last week it was 40° with sun and without and we asked the trees not to forget themselves in one loose moment’s warm embrace with you. We are impatient and would not have the leaf buds swell only to be surprised by one of your betrayals. You love in the bud, come. I am moving slow as sap toward you— bundled like a three year old snow blind and laughing I slide toward a pratfall into your lap— giddy from chasing you in all your wanton moods. Oh, let me look at you see you however you come You, trickster You crystalshining bootslide You childfaced snowballer You You know I keep on loving you in spite of everything. —Barbara J. Pescan Morning Watch

A Prayer in February

Oh, let me look at you
see you however you come
You, trickster You
crystalshining bootslide You
childfaced snowballer You

You
know I keep on loving you
in spite of everything.

Barbara J. Pescan
Morning Watch

A child holding up a copy of the book The Tending Years.

Every day you meet your child’s spiritual and emotional needs—you just don’t know it. In this accessible and comforting book, J.L. Shattuck provides insight into your child’s earliest rituals. The Tending Years is available wherever books are sold.

A copy of BLUU Notes with snow around it.

Forged at the intersection of faith and justice, BLUU Notes: An Anthology of Love, Justice, and Liberation is the first publication from Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU). Available wherever books are sold and through inSpirit: The UU Book and Gift Shop.

Love at the Center book on a marketing image that says new from Skinner House

“Given everything our world faces today, having faith in love is no small thing.” —Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt. May Love at the Center: Unitarian Universalist Theologies serve as an invitation to deepen your own understanding and practices of love. Available wherever books are sold.

A Fire at the Center audiobook playing on a cell phone.

Did you know A Fire at the Center: Solidarity, Whiteness, and Becoming a Water Protector by Karen Van Fossan is also available as an audiobook? Get your copy today from Libro.fm, Audible, or any other major audio platforms. And you can often request that your local library purchase a copy too!

The ebook of The Tending Years on a blanket with a candle and a cup of coffee.

Every day you meet your child’s spiritual and emotional needs—you just don’t know it. In this accessible and comforting book, J.L. Shattuck provides insight into your child’s earliest rituals. The Tending Years is available wherever books are sold.

Valentine Creation gives us snow. Lest we imagine beauty was only for summer, or trees for leafing; just in case we thought cold was for winter or, at best, firesides or pots of pea soup, creation gives us snow. Creation outlines each slender twig with snow, a flake at a time. With divine patience, winter writes a character, a syllable, a word, until nature’s grace is there on every tenacious surface. And what of you and me? Ought we to think we can do better in our building of trust that we dare hurry such a thing as friendship? Let us write our vows slowly, knowing some of the words like snowflakes will fall away, that from time to time a misunderstanding will come like a gust of wind or a bird’s foot to a snow-covered branch, disrupting the careful gifts of love. Let us work on our manuscript, mirroring nature’s patience, until the love is whole and the drift of our days is done. Elizabeth Tarbox Evening Tide

"Creation gives us snow. Lest we imagine beauty was only for summer, or trees for leafing; just in case we thought cold was for winter or, at best, firesides or pots of pea soup, creation gives us snow."

Valentine by Elizabeth Tarbox
Evening Tide

A copy of BLUU Notes with snow around it.

Forged at the intersection of faith and justice, BLUU Notes: An Anthology of Love, Justice, and Liberation is the first publication from Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU). Available wherever books are sold and through inSpirit: The UU Book and Gift Shop.

The cover of The Tending Years on a marketing image that says new from Skinner House

Every day you meet your child’s spiritual and emotional needs—you just don’t know it. In this accessible and comforting book, J.L. Shattuck provides insight into your child’s earliest rituals. The Tending Years is available wherever books are sold.

Two people sitting on a dock with a dark blue sky above their head. They are facing each other as if in conversation. The quote says: "Engaging in conversation is an act of love. It is listening, hearing the cries of the other's heart, and offering the cries of our own heart in return." Written by Jeanne Harrison Nieuwejaar, from Fluent in Faith.

"Engaging in conversation is an act of love. It is listening, hearing the cries of the other's heart, and offering the cries of our own heart in return."

—Jeanne Harrison Nieuwejaar, Fluent in Faith

Love at the Center book on a marketing image that says new from Skinner House

“Given everything our world faces today, having faith in love is no small thing.” —Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt. May Love at the Center: Unitarian Universalist Theologies serve as an invitation to deepen your own understanding and practices of love. Available wherever books are sold.

Wind, Stop Blowing! by Laura Alary and illustrated by Sue Teodoro was one of two winners in the "Picture Book: All Ages" category. And Blue Boat Home by musician Peter Mayer and illustrated by Sue Todd was the singular winner in the "Best Illustrations" category. Available wherever books are sold!

Two children's books--Wind, Stop Blowing! and Blue Boat Home--on top of snow.

We are thrilled to announce that two of our recent children’s books were selected as Northern Lights Book Award winners! The Northern Lights Book Awards honor children’s literature of exceptional merit that excels in aesthetic and literary qualities with an emphasis on timeless appeal.

Being a person of color in America today is like the person who stepped aside for passing hikers at the Grand Canyon and tripped and fell four hundred feet instead, except that if you are a person of color, people search for your criminal record as you fall. They tut that, after all, you could have been more compliant. They include the subtext—free of charge—your falling is a clear indication that you deserved it. Whatever it is, whatever flavor of dehumanizing is being served. When you are falling they assert that you just don’t get it because your parents were immigrants, which is only a dirty word in the mouth of a colonizer feigning innocence. When you are a person of color, you are never [on] the winning side. As you fall, they tell you that all hikers matter and are worthy of first aid. Never mind that you will reach the bottom Dead. —Being a person of color in America today Rev. Julián Jamaica Soto Spilling the Light

Being a person of color in America today

When you are falling
they assert that you just don’t get it
because your parents were immigrants,
which is only a dirty word in the mouth of
a colonizer feigning innocence.

Rev. Julián Jamaica Soto
Spilling the Light

The audiobook of Social Change Now playing on a cell phone.

Social Change Now by Deepa Iyer, the 2025–2026 UU Common Read, is now available as an audiobook! Get your copy today from Libro.fm, Audible, or any other major audio platforms. And you can often request that your local library purchase a copy too!

The cover of The Unitarian Universalist Pocket Guide on a graphic that says "New from Skinner House"

The new edition of The Unitarian Universalist Pocket Guide, edited by Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt, is a powerful, engaging, and accessible introduction to Unitarian Universalism. Available wherever books are sold!

The audiobook of Journey Toward Morning playing on a phone.

Journey Toward Morning is now available as an audiobook! We know you'll be supported and inspired by these meditations on nature, life, and spirituality by beloved Unitarian Universalist minister Victoria Safford. Get your copy today from Libro.fm, Audible, or any other major audio platforms.

This Day in Recovery on a knitted blanket.

One of the often-repeated mantras of recovery programs is “one day at a time.” This Day in Recovery offers a short, daily experience to help bring readers back to their spiritual center in the daily moments of struggle and questioning. Available wherever books are sold.

To commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on this day of remembrance. Prophets "Always it is easier to pay homage to prophets than to heed the direction of their vision. It is easier blindly to venerate the saints than to learn the human quality of their sainthood. It is easier to glorify the heroes of the race than to give weight to their examples. To worship the wise, making them gods, is much easier than to profit by their wisdom. Great leaders are honored, not by adulation, but by sharing their insights and values. Grandchildren of those who stoned the prophet sometimes gather up the stones to build the prophet's monument. The sky-gods are favored by the enchantment of distance, but the earth-gods are victims of time exposure." —Clinton Lee Scott Day of Promise: Collected Meditations

To commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on this day of remembrance.

Prophets

Always it is easier to pay homage to prophets
than to heed the direction of their vision.

—Clinton Lee Scott, Day of Promise

The Unitarian Universalist Pocket Guide audiobook playing on a cell phone.

The Unitarian Universalist Pocket Guide is now available as an audiobook! Get your copy of this powerful, engaging, and accessible introduction to Unitarian Universalism today from Libro.fm, Audible, or any other audio platforms. And you can often request that your local library purchase a copy too!

This Day in Recovery covered in snowflakes.

One of the often-repeated mantras of recovery programs is “one day at a time.” This Day in Recovery offers a short, daily experience to help bring readers back to their spiritual center in the daily moments of struggle and questioning. Available wherever books are sold.

Benediction for the Heavy Heart Good morning. I missed your “good” because a plane, because a truck, because a gun, because a cop, because a government, because a people suffering, because too many people suffering, because war, because famine, because some mornings it is so hard to rise, to wake, to be a self. There is a pause here. There is a deliberate cessation. I want a cessation to the noise in my head, to the ache in the collective heart of this world. When I was young this seemed possible. . . . I want your mornings “good,” your evenings “good,” all the late nights and sunrises and afternoons and moments pressed against the ticking glass of your life “good.” Breathe. For yourself. For each other. Let us breathe in when others cannot. When we can do nothing else. Let us stretch ourselves open to embrace our friends, extend our bodies outward to anyone willing to meet us and even those we think may not be willing. Let us hold each other for this moment. For this blink of human existence. —Mason Bolton, To Wake, To Rise: Meditations on Justice and Resilience

Benediction for the Heavy Heart

Good morning. I missed your “good”
because a plane, because a truck, because
a gun, because a cop, because a government,
because a people suffering, because too many
people suffering, because war, because famine,
because some mornings it is so hard . . .