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Spirituality and Religion November 2018
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How Do We Look? the Body, the Divine, and the Question of Civilization
by Mary Beard
What it is: Published alongside the PBS series Civilizations, this thought-provoking exploration of art and architecture spans both continents and faiths, from early Buddhist cave art to Christian mosaics.
Topics of note: Islamic figurative calligraphy; comparing sacred art with its secular contemporaries; the importance of asking why a particular work was made when evaluating it.
About the author: Mary Beard is a Cambridge academic known for her work about the classical world including Wolfson Prize-winning Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town.
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| The King and the Catholics: England, Ireland, and the Fight for Religious Freedom, 1780-1829 by Antonia FraserWhat it's about: the politically charged, occasionally violent battle in 18th-century Britain to allow Catholics the same civil rights that Protestants enjoyed.
You might also like: Alice Hogge's God's Secret Agents, which outlines the fraught, fluid relationship between the British monarchy and its Catholic subjects in the late Tudor and early Stuart period.
Author alert: Popular historian Antonia Fraser is best known for her biographies of royal figures like Marie Antoinette and Mary Queen of Scots. |
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| Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and... by Linda Kay KleinWhat it is: Linda Kay Klein's candid and sometimes disturbing appraisal of the emotional consequences that she believes evangelical Christianity's "purity culture" is having on young women -- and her story of leaving it behind.
Is it for you? Klein's reflections on her trauma and recollections of her experiences may be difficult for some readers.
Further reading: Nine Parts of Desire by Geraldine Brooks, which looks at similar issues faced by Muslim women; A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans. |
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| Almost Everything: Notes on Hope by Anne LamottWhat it's about: This candid, funny collection from the bestselling author of Hallelujah Anyway reflects on hope, encouraging readers to rely on its power even when things look grim.
Reviewers say: "Those who enjoy Lamott's consistently self-deprecating humor, vulnerability, and occasional nuggets of positivity will enjoy her latest" (Kirkus Reviews).
Want a taste? "I am stockpiling antibiotics for the Apocalypse, even as I await the blossoming of paperwhites on the windowsill in the kitchen." |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Culpeper County Library 271 Southgate Shopping Center Culpeper, Virginia 22701 540-825-8691
www.cclva.org
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