Saint Peter's Fair

My first book of the new year! The only challenge that this one counts towards is my 2012 GoodReads challenge, to read 245 books in 2012. I aimed for 156 (3 per week) in 2011 and made it to 242, so I think aiming to up my total by 3 in 2012 is perfectly possible.

Saint Peter's Fair is the fourth book of the Cadfael Chronicles, set in Shrewsbury during the Nineteen Year Winter in the 12th century (Not to be confused with darkoutthere's LARP by the same name, inspired by the Cadfael books and excessively fun if you haven't played in it already (and, really, even if you have!)). The book is split into five sections, which is rare in these books, the eve of the fair, the first, second and third days of the fair and after the fair. Events focus on young Emma, a wealthy merchant's niece, come to the fair from Bristol. Another focus of the novel is the unrest from the town, as it had recently been attacked by King Stephen, after declaring for Empress Maud (see One corpse too many, book two in the series). The town is aggrieved that for three days of high business, all income goes to the Abbey and they feel that the Abbey should part with some of that income in order to restore the town's defences etc.

This is a fascinating and enjoyable murder mystery, with a hint of espionage thrown in from all quarters, and well up to Pargeter's usual high standard.

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time

This is a very interesting read. It's really quite a fascinating look at political matters, the way people live in other, less westernised countries and, most importantly, the lengths that people will go to in order to help themselves. All they need is the resources, which are so very hard to come by. Greg Mortenson, however, makes sure that they get them.

This book is partly about the development and work of the Central Asia Institute (much to my disappointment, this doesn't fit the requirements of my Middle Eastern challenge as a result) and the work they do. It's also partly about Greg Mortenson - who he is, why he is the way he is and so on. It's not really a biography, though it's certainly biographical. It's a weird mix of things. It's definitely worth reading, though it can be heavy-going in places.

The Heretic's Apprentice

This is the only Cadfael mystery I've ever had to restart because I just couldn't get into it the first time. I suspect the reasoning for that was that it was around the time I was reading about the Inquisition and there's really only so much religious intolerance I can handle. I didn't even make it to the murder the first time!

This time, I finished it and enjoyed every moment of it. Given the amount of so-called heresies abounding at the time (and, really, ever since such a thing was invented), I really don't think there was any way to avoid covering the topic in at least one of the Cadfael novels. I think she did it very well, personally.

On top of that, there's a murder, which may or may not be related. There's a love story, which is not uncommon, Cadfael has a weak spot for young love. There's also dissension amongst both monks and lay folk regarding what constitutes heresy as well as what constitutes an acceptable use of one's own wit, which may or may not be dependent on one's sex and station in life. And, there's plenty of information about the crafts of the time, in this case the creation of vellum, which was skin that was used as paper (for lack of a simpler way of explaining it). I'm really glad I went back and finished this one, it was definitely worth it!

The Hermit of Eyton Forest

A Brother Cadfael mystery. I had planned to keep this for my Lethal Location challenge next year, but it turns out this was published in 1988.

This really is a very good example of what I enjoy about the series. There's plenty of real life history in the background, with King Stephen and the Empress Maud battling, in this particular novel they're currently fighting over Oxford. (On a side note, we had a lovely LARP set in this period of time, based on the fight between the King and the Empress, which was inspired by this series.) Plenty of good detecting with a healthy sprinkling of clues that let the reader work it out for themselves, if they're so inclined.

This particular novel is loosely centred on Richard, who's father is now dead. He's the 10-year-old heir to a large chunk of land and his only living relative is his domineering grandmother, who wants to marry him off to more land. Luckily for him he's safe in the keeping of the abbot. And then, a hermit arrives, Richard makes friends with the hermit's errand boy and an abbey guest is murdered. Chaos ensues. Luckily Brother Cadfael is there to solve the mystery, with the help of the sherriff, Hugh Beringar, and thankfully unencumbered by any notion of duty to the law. He can act in whatever way he sees as right. And given this is the 12th century, legal and right aren't always the same thing.

As always, the supporting characters are well-drawn and engaging, as is the mystery. Most importantly, Cadfael isn't annoyingly right all the time and none of the Holy Brethren are without fault (though some are more faulty than others, of course). In short, this is a quick, fun read that's still good despite being fluffy.

Tolkien and the Great War: the Threshold of Middle Earth

This is an amazing book. I've never really read much about the First World War. Anyone who's so much as glanced at my non-fiction shelves or GoodReads stats will note a decided preponderance of works relating to the Second World War, but nothing on the First. Everything I know about the First World War is due to Sue Harsant, who taught me history in high school (and I shall never forget her complaining after an exam/test/assignment that we should not simply say Ferdinand, because she might think we were referring to Ferdinand the Bull who went traipsing through the daisies. Her very dry sense of humour delighted myself and Tiina Napoleon at the time).

Anyway, the point of that long aside was that this is the first work I've ever read about the First World War and so was my first glimpse into the horrors of trench warfare. I had an intellectual understanding that it was a horrific thing, but I didn't understand. I still don't, thankfully, but now I have a greater idea of what about it was so horrific. Of what it was like to be there, what happened to people on the ground. On the one hand it makes me glad for the 'advances' of mechanised warfare. At the same time, those same supposed advances terrify me. No longer does individual kill individual, now machine destroys machine and life from afar. I know they had machine guns and bombs and so on, but on the whole they could at least see who they were killing. The horror of war, and the facts of war - the facts being that you are killing individuals that are really no different from yourself - were up close and personal. They no longer are.

At the same time as this works as a general introduction (for me) to the First World War (because you can be sure I'm going to be looking for more on the subject now), it also works really well as a biographical work on Tolkien. Specifically with regard to the effect that his experiences in the war and in the Battle of the Somme particularly must have had on his writing. You cannot go through an experience of that sort without undergoing profound changes. There's a fair amount of speculation on the author's part because Tolkien was extremely reticent regarding those experiences. That speculation is backed up by fairly solid reasoning (in my completely uncritical opinion) and while I'm of the opinion that you can never know exactly how things influenced the creative process, you can work out a fair amount, especially when it's something as significant as this.

If you're interested in either the First World War or Tolkien, I'd recommend this.

A Return to Love

This book is based on A Course in Miracles. Given the essentially Christian culture in which the book was written, it takes a Christian viewpoint, but uses the usual Christian touchstones as symbols, so God, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, the resurrection and the crucifixion are common terms scattered throughout the book but their meaning is not the conventional Christian meaning – for example, God is used interchangeably with love, joy and the light.

The basic premise is that the ego has caused us to live in a world of illusions, caused by fear-based thinking. By focusing on God's will instead, the illusions disappear leaving only the perfection of love behind. In order for us to be able to see the world in this way, we need to pray to the Holy Spirit for miracles – these miracles are changes in the way that we perceive things and will enable us to see the core of perfect love inside every being. It will also enable us to enter situations from the basis of love, rather than fear. A variety of situations are covered, ranging from how to view your career and find total fulfilment in it to the illusions that ruin your relationship with your body, other individuals and people in general.

Dissolution

The first in a series of novels about Matthew Shardlake, a hunchbacked lawyer during the Reformation. In this book, he travels to a monastery where one of Lord Cromwell's men has been murdered. As the man was there to convince the abbot to voluntarily close the monastery suspects abound. It's a complicated plot that really is quite fascinating. It's also interesting to see the subject of the dissolution of the monasteries from a variety of viewpoints.

One can both lament all the good work that the monasteries did with the poor, the sick and in education, as well as understanding that the majority of them had strayed, were accumulating vast amounts of property and wealth as well as behaving in ways that monks should not. Some kind of reformation was necessary, I do not know that it should have been so drastic. Of course, at a time when loyalty to anyone other than the king amounted to treason there really wasn't much choice.

Coming on the heels of A Trail of Blood, which only briefly touched on the subject, one could almost feel that they were meant to go together. This is highly recommended.

A Trail of Blood

Set during the reign of Henry VIII, this is a story that seeks to explain the mystery of the Princes in the Tower. The two princes, Edward and Richard, went to live in the Tower of London when their father, Edward IV, died. For whatever reason the crowning of their uncle as regent was postponed. Finally the uncle was crowned Richard III. His Tudor successors later claimed that he had murdered the princes in order to ascend to the throne. There has never been any conclusive proof regarding what happened to the two princes.

This novel claims that the reason the coronation of Richard as regent was postponed was because the two princes (and consequently their sister, the mother of Henry VIII) were found to be illegitimate. Richard III kept the boys in the Tower to protect them, as he had sworn to do. The story explains why they felt the need to escape and how Edward was killed in the attempt. The rest of the novel is spent uncovering the movement and final location (really quite obvious from the beginning) of Richard, Duke of York.

The aim of the protagonists is to unearth a Yorkist claimant to the throne, ostensibly to succeed Henry VIII (who had no son at the time) but really to put an end to the Reformation and what they saw as a corrupt regime with dubious claims to royalty. The aim of the author is to solve the mystery in as plausible a manner as possible. I think he succeeds, though some of the events and coincidences are a little far-fetched. I'm interested in finding more by the author, particularly the non-fiction related to this period.

A Sudden Death at the Norfolk Cafe

Generally, I'm a sucker for books with nuns (or monks, for that matter). I'm not sure how I felt about this one. It was an enjoyable story and I'll be looking out for the others in the series. It wasn't a good mystery because the reader knew everything that was going on. It was fun to watch the characters involved solve their pieces of the puzzle and bring it all together though.

It was the religious aspect that I had a problem with, but I suspect that that was mainly because this is a contemporary book with nuns. No cellphones or email, so it's presumably set in the early nineties when it was written. Possibly the way the nuns interact with the outside world is fairly accurate. I do wonder just how much research the author did. For a start, the order doesn't seem to be mentioned, possibly this is a fictional order to suit the purposes of the author. It's hard to tell given the myriad orders that actually exist.

This is a fun story and, while I probably wouldn't recommend it to most people that I know, if you like more old-fashioned detective stories, with less of the violence and sex that is so common these days, then you'll probably enjoy this.

The Screwtape Letters

This was a most amusing book that manages to make you laugh and think at the same time. I felt very sorry for poor Wormwood, though I didn't need Screwtape to tell me he was seriously screwing up. I'm tempted to say that the last letter in the book was the best of the lot.

Though I don't believe in demons or devils or whatever it is that they're supposed to be, I find myself questioned my motivations more now than I did before. As much as this is a work of fiction there is a certain amount of truth underneath, as in all CS Lewis's work.

Highly recommended.

The End of the Affair

I'm not sure that this was the best book to read after Cold Mountain, but that's what I did. This book was less depressing, though I must say that I rather suspected the ending. I was wrong about the path that lead to the end, however. I was not expecting a sudden pact with a god that one didn't truly believe in. I was not expecting the truth of just why Sarah wasn't doing what she was supposed to be doing. I thought she had cancer or something and was seeing some kind of kooky healer. The religious undertones to the book completely surprised me.

I have to say that I was very pleased to be wrong about the journey to get to the end. It's not often that this kind of story can surprise you, though that might have been less true when it was written.

Now, what I really want to know is whether or not this book should be considered a classic. Read it and tell me what you think.

The Essence of Buddha: the Path to Enlightenment

A nice counter balance to all the Christianity I've been imbibing. Christianity fascinates me because I live in a Judeo-Christian culture. Of course, other religions and other ways of seeing the world interest me too, but they often seem comparably unintelligible because I simply don't have the cultural background that enables proper understanding.

Will one book make the difference? No. But it will help. This book is a succinct, clear account of what it means to be Buddhist. Most importantly (from my perspective anyway) it includes practical ways to go about putting Buddhism into practice in your own life.

This book seems very simplistic to me. Perhaps that's because my knowledge of Buddhism is limited. I have the idea that Buddhism is complex and cannot (and shouldn't) be explained so easily. This may just be a result of the Judeo-Christian culture in which I live, which has extraordinarily complicated relationships between the various 'churches', all of whom interpret the underlying message in a slightly different way. On the other hand, I heartily approve simplifying both message and language. We seem to have a desire for complicated things and making things more complicated than they need to be. This is anything but.

On the strength of this, I think it's safe to say that Buddhism as a religion is not for me. Buddhism as a philosophy maybe. And what's the difference between the two? Religion is about faith, belief and worship. Philosophy is a way of living. The Buddhist ideal of a daily meditation practice and self-reflection appeals to my contemplative nature. The rest of it not so much.

The Problem of Pain

This was not quite what I was expecting. Lewis made that clear in his introduction, so I was aware once I started to read that I was getting something else. I was expecting a treatise on methods of coping with pain - emotional, physical, acute, chronic - with some reference to Christianity as Lewis was a Christian and wrote from that standpoint.

This is a book that seeks to answer the question as to why pain exists, given the Christian notion of an all-powerful god that is goodness personified. As I'm not Christian (though if anyone were to persuade me, it would be Lewis) I had to suspend disbelief while reading this book. It is not possible to simply wiggle a little and make what Lewis says fit your worldview. One has to suspend disbelief, read the totality of what he says and then see if what he says makes sense with whatever it is that you believe.

His argument is interesting and it's certainly one that I've never before considered. I'm not even going to try to summarise what he says. Mostly because he says it so much better and more clearly than I ever could and partly because I'm still letting it settle into my mind and find its place there.

I can only recommend this to Christians, or people who wonder what a Christian argument explaining pain and suffering is. If you're not interested in that, this isn't the book for you.

Mary Tudor: England's First Queen

History has vilified her as Bloody Mary. Why? Because she burnt over 300 heretics in her reign. She tried to stem the tide of Protestantism in England, to return the country to the Catholicism that reigned at her birth and until her father's lust (for both power and women) got the better of him. Unable to produce an heir, the crown returned to a Protestant (Queen Elizabeth I) and Mary was consequently vilified on religious grounds.

I had always thought that Elizabeth was the first queen of England and that her sister Mary was Mary Queen of Scots. How little I knew! Mary Tudor was a phenomenal woman. She lived in interesting times. To have your entire family turned against you for your beliefs - beliefs that they shared until very recently - must be extremely disorienting for anyone. She handled herself extremely well. I am impressed by her complete belief and the way that she was willing to stand by her belief and not simply renounce it for another, milder version of the same faith as so many others did. Unlike Elizabeth, she was not willing to pretend to comply with the religious dictates of her family and the law. She was prepared to die for what she believed. History would have been far kinder to her if she had.

This is a story of a remarkable woman. I admire her greatly for her unwavering determination to do what she believed was right. I may not agree with what she believed, or what she did, but I admire the courage that she showed at a time when she was abandoned by all who should have supported her. This is a woman who did much for the equality of women and the rights of women at a time when the notion was never even considered. This is a highly recommended biography.

Pascal's Wager: the Man Who Played Dice with God

This is not really a book about Pascal's Wager, so much as it's a book about Blaise Pascal. It was particularly interesting to read this while The Three Musketeers was fresh in my mind, as the two overlap in time, with Cardinal Richelieu, Louis XIII (who was apparently homosexual) and Anne of Austria being prominent figures in both.

Anyway, this book considers Pascal's life from birth to death. It considers his rational and scientific research, and the varying success thereof, both as it relates to contemporary times and as it related to the time in which he lived. It also considers the religious atmosphere of seventeenth century France. I found Jansenism, and consequently Augustinism, as rather frightening extremes of Catholic belief. I was highly amused at the way the Catholic Church wiggled around the question of heresy, as declaring Jansenism heretical really is the same as declaring Augustinism heretical. But questions of Catholic belief are not relevant here.

What is relevant is that Pascal subscribed to Jansenism. Somehow, from that religious standpoint he formulated his well-known wager. Connor makes the point that the wager is only really useful in the context of the 'rules' of the 'game' in which it was made, which I found very interesting. What I particularly found interesting is that considering Augustinist, and consequently Jansenist, belief in efficacious grace, the wager should never have been made. Which brings up the question of what Pascal actually believed, as opposed to what he thought he believed.

This is a fascinating biography of a remarkable man - both in terms of science and theology and in terms of the relationship between them in the seventeenth century. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in these subjects.

The Passion of Therese of Lisieux

This is the story of the final part of Therese of Lisieux's life. I don't pretend to understand the Christian term 'passion', which seems to mean 'suffering leading up to death'. That's certainly what this book is about. I have an autobiography of Saint Therese on my list of books to read, but this deals purely with the onset of symptoms of the tuberculosis that led to her death.

This is an interesting read, particularly because I had no idea who Saint Therese was or why she was important (or even that she was actually a canonised saint). I was also rather ignorant as to the progression and final stages of pulmonary tuberculosis, that it can spread to the intestines (which apparently causes gangrene and is most unpleasant) or even that there were multiple varieties of tuberculosis (I shall have to google phthisical tuberculosis - apparently phthisis is a medical term for 'wasting away' and so it has the same meaning as 'consumption' and other terms no longer used for tuberculosis, one definition has it as meaning 'pulmonary tuberculosis'!).

I personally found Saint Therese rather irritating in her desire to die, to be a martyr. Isn't she supposed to wish to live so as to work for her god? Apparently, that only applies if you consider the Christian heaven to be a place of rest. Saint Therese considered that she would be able to do her work far better in heaven and so was anxious to be there. I'm not sure how I feel about her, but I consider her 'little way' to be something of great interest. As far as I can tell, it entails being completely dependent on and trusting in god, such that you give yourself up into god. As you might imagine I see quite a few parallels to what she says with what Bernadette Roberts said in her book. It's likely I'm seeing things that aren't there, but there are certain phrases that Saint Therese uses in describing her experiences that struck me all the more forcefully for the previous reading.

As someone interested in what makes people themselves, this is an interesting book. I don't know that I'd recommend it to anyone that wasn't interested in Saints, Religion or the Way Religion Effects People.

The Experience of No-Self

Oh. Well. This is one of those books. I shall have to read it again, later, to glean more from it. I'm left with a profound sense of something that I can't explain. A peace and certainty that I rarely experience (though it's frequent at the end of a yoga class).

I don't agree with everything that Roberts says, mostly because she's a Christian (presumably Catholic, since Wikipedia tells me she used to be a Carmelite nun) and I am (mostly) atheist. She does not appear to be one of those rabid Christians that believe theirs is the only way, in fact she says a number of things that I imagine orthodox Christians (probably particularly if they're Catholic) would consider heresy. I do, however, consider myself contemplative, as she does, though not in the strict Christian tradition of contemplation. This book talks about (what appears to be) the final journey of the contemplative, using her Christian belief as an explanatory framework. Had I had her experience (and I'm, presumably, working on that as a contemplative) and written on it, I would have written the same basic things, but from an atheistic viewpoint.

Of course, I do wonder if I can be truly contemplative and an atheist at the same time. The fact is, I have no choice. I am an atheist. I've never come across a single religious thing that I can actually believe. I can pretend to believe, but only for a short time. The pretence consumes to much energy for me to keep it going. At the same time, I do yoga, I meditate I read all these religious texts. I'm searching for something to believe. I don't think I'll find it, but I will find myself (or my no-self) and the truth while I'm looking.

The reading of this book is an experience in and of itself. This is a book that should be read time and time again as one progresses through the various stages of life. I do not recommend it for anyone that isn't contemplative.

A Novena for Murder

My favourite kind of murder mystery, one that involves nuns. This is a rather pedestrian mystery, but it's fun nonetheless. The characters are believable, even the ones that one doesn't particularly like. The police are believable and, most importantly, not complete idiots. There's nothing worse than a murder mystery where one has to 'take over' the investigation because the police are twits. It's not often that that happens in real life, I don't know why it's so ubiquitous in murder mysteries.

While I did say that the mystery itself is rather pedestrian, it also manages to be complex and unpleasant, as all good mysteries that result in murder should be. Perhaps it's only pedestrian because I read far too many books of this sort.

Anyway, it's a fun read and I'll be keeping an eye out for others in the Sister Mary Helen series and by this author (a nun herself) in general.

No Women in Holy Orders? The Women Deacons of the Early Church

This is a fascinating book. I had no idea that the whole thing about allowing women to be ordained had its basis in something historical. Now I do. Wijngaards makes it very clear that the early church ordained women as deacons. He deals clearly and succinctly with the arguments of those scholars that believe that these women were merely blessed. Personally, I would go a step further and show how ridiculous these arguments are by replacing the word 'women' with 'men'.

Having read this book, I simply cannot understand how anyone can object to the ordination of women on anything other than sexist grounds. A sexism that has no place in the world in which we live and in which the (Catholic) church is trying to survive. Wijngaards makes the point wonderfully when he says that there will come a time when people are no longer willing to support an institution that excludes them in a prejudiced manner (read the book for the actual quote, the way he puts it is far better).

Which brings me to a point that I feel should not be ignored. There is clear and damning evidence that the Catholic church has, among other heinous acts, condoned and covered up the sexual abuse of minors by priests (and presumably others, but 'priests' is a useful catch-all term) for the better part of the last thousand years. The current Pope - the infallible representative of the Catholic god on earth - is personally responsible for this. How can anyone remain Catholic in the face of this? Denial and ignorance play a role, I'm sure. As far as I can tell, the only way to remain Catholic in the face of this is to accept that what the church has done is perfectly acceptable in god's eyes. If you don't, you deny the infallibility of the Pope and, presumably, violate a bunch of other stuff that is required of you to be Catholic. I can't help feeling that in the face of the greater question (why on earth are there still Catholics?), the question of the ordination of women is largely irrelevant.

Hidden Children of the Holocaust

This book is about the lower echelons of the Catholic clergy during the Nazi occupation of Belgium in World War II. While the higher levels kept quiet, the parish priests and nuns hid thousands of Jewish children and saved their lives.

Vromen undertook this research as a sociological study and the book reads somewhat like a thesis. She has interviewed one priest, a number of nuns, a number of hidden children and a couple of members of the secular resistance movement responsible for getting the children from their families to the institutions that hid them.

I am left feeling depressed and uplifted at the same time. Nazis and nuns are two of my greatest fascinations, so it's no surprise that I enjoyed this study. What I'm left with is a sense that armed resistance receives too much acclaim in comparison with other forms. The people who just did a few tiny things - carrying messages or providing food - were just as courageous as those who chose a more militant form of resistance. But what about all those others who chose not to resist, neither actively nor passively. Did they collaborate or embrace Nazi ideology? Did they merely think of themselves as neutral? Which begs the question, how can you remain neutral in the face of such inhuman behaviour? More interestingly, how would I have behaved? There's no way to know without finding myself in a position that I hope the world never sees again. I suspect, though, that as survivors die memory will fade and such horrors may again be committed. The extreme religious right of the United States and their vilification of Muslims give me cause for concern. The eternal conflict in the Middle East gives me cause for concern. Every continent shows some form of intolerance and oppression of humanity. I can only do what little I can to ensure that we do not forget.