By Jessica Arsenault, Sales & Marketing Associate

This year Inner Traditions celebrates 35 years of publishing. Normally the milestones of turning 30 or 40 are more celebrated than 35, but when looking at this number (and looking back on those years) I see turning 35 as a wonderful achievement, a milestone indeed, and one that deserves a great celebration.

When considering Numerology, we don’t look at 35 as a whole, but we look at it as 3 + 5, and according to our author Harish Johari (Numerology) these odd & dynamic numbers combined represent free-thinking, but neither follow a traditional religion. The number 5 is noted as a restless number while 3 is noted as a good advisor and friend, so often they help each other. When added together we get 8, which represents confidence and determination. In the case of Inner Traditions turning 35, I couldn’t think of any better way to describe how our Publisher, Ehud C. Sperling, got to this “milestone” worth celebrating, than within the meaning of this number.

By Jon Graham, Acquisitions Editor

One of the featured speakers at the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair, adding his voice to the choir extolling the inevitable ascension of the e-book (and the pending demise of the publishing industry as we know it), made the remark that convenience trumps content every time. Easily rebutted on its own (fast food restaurants have not brought about the demise of fine dining—far from it, there are now more schools of the culinary arts in the United States than there were when the McDonald brothers began selling franchises), I felt the remark was double-edged as there is a legitimate question—which is truly more convenient—the electronic book or the traditional paper construction. Unlike music or video recordings, which require a device to read them, the traditional book requires no mediating instrument. The fact of using an electronic book reader could in fact be regarded as complicating a fairly simple and effective relationship—one that has endured for centuries. Or, to put it another way, it could be compared to adopting a prosthetic device in circumstances that do not truly warrant it.

Staff Pick by Mindy Branstetter

I am so pleased that Inner Traditions has publishing two books by Frédérick Leboyer this past season. A revised edition of Birth without Violence, the book that changed the way that babies are brought into the world, is available for a new generation.

Staff Pick by Erica Robinson, Special Projects