Muhammad

Prolific best-selling author/New Age motivational speaker Chopra (www.chopra.com) provides listeners with an absorbing and enlightening fictitious account of the life of the titular Islamic prophet. Mecca during Muhammad's days is vividly portrayed through the use of multiple first-person narrators including Muhammad's first wife, his daughter, and even the Archangel Gabriel. Chopra, who has also written the biographical novels Buddha (2007) and Jesus (2008), begins and ends this novel with an author's note and an afterword that offer both a short history of Islam and reflections about the current state of the Muslim world. Appreciators of religious fiction and anyone wishing to understand Islam better will enjoy this compelling work, smoothly narrated by the author. [The HarperOne hc, which was published in September, was a New York Times best seller.—Ed.]—Beth Farrell, Cleveland-Marshall Coll. of Law Lib., Cleveland State Univ.