Books about Convent from Amazon.com

A convent in Spain. Nuns going about their routine in the name of God. But all is not quite as it seems. There are cracks on the surface Some nuns seem to harbor secret lusts for each other. Then there¹s an accident in the cellar revealing a very old condemned door found on no plan. One of the less holy nuns has a satanic nightmare about it. She decides to find out. What she unleashes is an unholy bedlam of depravity and lust! Beautifully painted and full of very raw sexual energy!.
Price: $7.60 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In Jesus in Our Wombs, Rebecca J. Lester takes us behind the walls of a Roman Catholic convent in central Mexico to explore the lives, training, and experiences of a group of postulants--young women in the first stage of religious training as nuns. Lester, who conducted eighteen months of fieldwork in the convent, provides a rich ethnography of these young women's journeys as they wrestle with doubts, fears, ambitions, and setbacks in their struggle to follow what they believe to be the will of God. Gracefully written, finely textured, and theoretically rigorous, this book considers how these aspiring nuns learn to experience God by cultivating an altered experience of their own female bodies, a transformation they view as a political stance against modernity.
Lester explains that the Postulants work toward what they see as an "authentic" femininity--one that has been eclipsed by the values of modern society. The outcome of this process has political as well as personal consequences. The Sisters learn to understand their very intimate experiences of "the Call"--and their choices in answering it--as politically relevant declarations of self. Readers become intimately acquainted with the personalities, family backgrounds, friendships, and aspirations of the Postulants as Lester relates the practices and experiences of their daily lives. Combining compassionate, engaged ethnography with an incisive and provocative theoretical analysis of embodied selves, Jesus in Our Wombs delivers a profound analysis of what Lester calls the convent's "technology of embodiment" on multiple levels--from the phenomenological to the political..
Price: $8.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Serving as the single largest resource ever compiled about Europe's monastery and convent guesthouses, this extraordinary guidebook features more than four hundred and fifty places of spiritual retreat in twenty countries. It is an excellent resource for travelers, pilgrims, summer vacationers, students, armchair travelers, Catholic history or trivia buffs, or anyone else interested in monasteries. This handbook provides a key to discovering some of Christianity's most ancient and beloved sites. In these pages you will find all the famous monasteries and abbeys, including those found at Subiaco, Cîteaux, Soligny-la-Trappe, Chartreuse, Monte Cassino, Aylesford, Santo Domingo de Silos, Mt. Athos, and Solesmes.

Inside, you'll find the following invaluable information:

* A thorough history of Christian monasticism
* Complete stories of the major monastic orders
* A chronicle of Gregorian Chant
* Contact information for more than 450 monasteries, convents, & places of retreat
* Brief descriptions of each holy place
* Dozens of photographs
* Comprehensive listing of monastic-related websites
* Indispensable Internet travel resources

You'll also find many interesting tidbits and fascinating pieces of information from the author, an experienced traveler who has backpacked through eighteen European countries visiting many of the major shrines, sanctuaries, monasteries, convents, and other places of retreat..
Price: $10.18 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In Colonial Habits Kathryn Burns transforms our view of nuns as marginal recluses, making them central actors on the colonial stage. Beginning with the 1558 founding of South America’s first convent, Burns shows that nuns in Cuzco played a vital part in subjugating Incas, creating a creole elite, and reproducing an Andean colonial order in which economic and spiritual interests were inextricably fused.
Based on unprecedented archival research, Colonial Habits demonstrates how nuns became leading guarantors of their city’s social order by making loans, managing property, containing “unruly” women, and raising girls. Coining the phrase “spiritual economy” to analyze the intricate investments and relationships that enabled Cuzco’s convents and their backers to thrive, Burns explains how, by the late 1700s, this economy had faltered badly, making convents an emblem of decay and a focal point for intense criticism of a failing colonial regime. By the nineteenth century, the nuns had retreated from their previous roles, marginalized in the construction of a new republican order.
Providing insight that can be extended well outside the Andes to the relationships articulated by convents across much of Europe, the Americas, and beyond, Colonial Habits will engage those interested in early modern economics, Latin American studies, women in religion, and the history of gender, class, and race.
.
Price: $13.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

From critically acclaimed historical novelist Diane Haeger comes The Ruby Ring, an unforgettable story of love, loss, and immortal genius . . .

Rome, 1520. The Eternal City is in mourning Raphael Sanzio, beloved painter and national hero, has died suddenly at the height of his fame. His body lies in state at the splendid marble Pantheon. At the nearby convent of Sant’Apollonia, a young woman comes to the Mother Superior, seeking refuge. She is Margherita Luti, a baker’s daughter from a humble neighborhood on the Tiber, now an outcast from Roman society, persecuted by powerful enemies within the Vatican. Margherita was Raphael’s beloved and appeared as the Madonna in many of his paintings. Theirs was a love for the ages. But now that Raphael is gone, the convent is her only hope of finding an honest and peaceful life.

The Mother Superior agrees to admit Margherita to their order. But first, she must give up the ruby ring she wears on her left hand, the ring she had worn in Raphael’s scandalous nude “engagement portrait.” The ring has a storied past, and it must be returned to the Church or Margherita will be cast out into the streets. Behind the quiet walls of the convent, Margherita makes her decision . . . and remembers her life with Raphael—and the love and torment—embodied in that one precious jewel.

In The Ruby Ring, Diane Haeger brings to life a love affair so passionate that it remains undimmed by time. Set in the sumptuous world of the Italian Renaissance, it’s the story of the clergymen, artists, rakes, and noblemen who made Raphael and Margherita’s world the most dynamic and decadent era in European history..
Price: $7.87 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The first comprehensive travel guide to accommodations in convents and monasteries, Bed and Blessings Italy will delight travelers from the first intriguing page to the last. From Rome to Ravello and Sienna to Sicily, Bed and Blessings Italy reveals extraordinary accommodations for budget and savvy travelers alike. Life behind the mysterious monastic walls is a journey into another time, another place -- very much in the real world, yet one step removed. Many of the houses are former palaces and villas, filled with exquisite antiques and religious artwork. All are open to people of any faith, or none at all, whether alone, as a couple or with a family.

In the Jubilee year 2000 Italy expects 30 million visitors, more than 8 times the annual amount! Many will stay in convents and monasteries, which hitherto, people have known about mainly through word-of-mouth. Now, Bed and Blessings Italy will offer travelers a real insider's guide to some of Italy's hidden treasures.

Bed and Blessings Italy is an imaginative and well-researched guide featuring 131 convents and monasteries in some of Italy's finest areas. Mother-daughter team June and Anne Walsh spent two years researching the places in their book, traversing 13 regions of Italy and visiting more than 300 sites. For each entry, the book gives a description of both the physical place and the atmosphere, as well as address, fax and phone numbers, price, number of rooms, availability of meals, languages spoken, directions, and so on. Plus, there is useful information for traveling in Italy in general -- how to make phone calls, use public transportation, etc. Sample forms are provided in Italian to ease the writing or faxing of requests. In addition, the book is illustrated with more than 50 detailed maps and color photos of some of the picturesque houses..
Price: $147.88 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673), until recently remembered more as a flamboyant eccentric than as a serious writer, was in fact the most prolific, thought-provoking, and original woman writer of the Restoration. Cavendish is the author of many poems, short stories, biographies, memoirs, letters, philosophical and scientific works (including The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing World, the first work of science fiction by a woman), and nineteen plays.

"The Convent of Pleasure" and Other Plays collects four of Cavendish's dramatic works that are among the most revealing of her attitudes toward marriage and her desire for fame. Loves Adventures (1662) centers on a woman succeeding in war and diplomacy by passing as a man. Similarly, the heroine of Bell in Campo (1662) rescues her husband at the head of an army of women in this tale of a marriage of near equals. The Convent of Pleasure (1668) proposes a separatist community of women and has received attention for its suggestion of lesbian sexuality. The Bridals (1662), a more typical restoration comedy satirizing marriage, rounds out the collection.

Edited with notes and annotation by Anne Shaver, "The Convent of Pleasure" and Other Plays also contains a timeline, biography and bibliography of the Duchess, an appreciation of Cavendish's life and work, and a bibliography of critical essays. Also included are all of Cavendish's epistles To the Reader as well as Other Preliminary Matter from Playes (1662), and Cavendish's original preface to Plays Never Before Printed (1668). A valuable collection from an extraordinary writer, "The Convent of Pleasure" and Other Plays raises important issues about women and gender.

.
Price: $11.81 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A funny, poignant account of a young woman's experiences becoming a Catholic nun during the tumultuous 1960s.

In 1964, Karol Jackowski was an eighteen-year-old girl just out of high school. But while her friends were heading off to college or finding their first jobs, Karol was following a different path. To the surprise of her family and friends, she decided to enter the convent of the Sisters of the Holy Cross in South Bend, Indiana, and spend the next eight years studying to become a Catholic nun.

Those years were a time of enormous change in the country and in the Church. They were times of joy, dedication, and a great deal of fun, set against the Second Vatican Council and the reforms it fostered, many of which remain controversial today. In this playful and candid memoir, Jackowski pulls back the curtain on the mysteries of convent life, as she recounts her rocky transition from worldly teenager to cloistered postulant; the trials she faced in coping with the restrictions of convent life ("nun of this and nun of that"); and the lessons she learned from the elderly nuns she was assigned to, who weren't nearly as pious as people thought. In prose that's as lively, insightful, and wise as she is, the author of Ten Fun Things to do Before You Die brings us a touching and heartfelt memoir of a woman following her true calling..
Price: $3.88 [Notify me when price goes down.]