Books about Convents from Amazon.com

Bestselling author Indu Sundaresan presents a candid and stunning collection of stories about contemporary Indians and the cutting-edge issues surrounding them -- where ancient tradition and modernity can often clash.

A young woman who was adopted by an American family in Seattle receives a letter from Sister Mary Theresa, nun at the Convent of Little Flowers in Chennai where she stayed as a child. Unbeknownst to her, the nun is her biological mother's sister. The grandmother of an Indian journalist begs him to intervene with her husband -- his grandfather -- to prevent a young widow from being burned alive. A child born out of wedlock to the sixteen-year-old daughter of a peon on an engineering college campus throws the entire family into turmoil.

With the lush prose, vividly rendered settings, complex and appealing characters, and compelling narratives, the stories that comprise In the Convent of Little Flowers illuminate the lives of Indians at home and abroad today, where modernity offers them opportunities that their grandmothers only dreamed of, while others experience just as much oppression as ever. Indu Sundaresan brings together stories that both embrace and reject modern values with an authenticity that only a writer of her caliber could do..
Price: $10.54 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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: $7.31 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Praised in The Atlantic Monthly as an "engrossing narrative," Nuns tells the fascinating stories of the women who have lived in religious communities during some of the most tumultuous years in European history. Drawing particularly on the nuns' own words, Silvia Evangelisti reveals their ideals and achievements, frustrations and failures, and their attempts to reach out to the society around them. She explores how they came to the cloister, how they responded to monastic discipline, and how they pursued their spiritual, intellectual, and missionary activities. Indeed, nuns often found a way to contribute to their communities by creating charities and schools, while a few exceptional women made names for themselves for their artistic talents or for establishing new convents. This book features the individual stories of some of the most outstanding historical figures, including Teresa of Avila, who set up over seventeen new convents. Evangelisti shows how these women were able to overcome some of the restrictions placed on women in their societies at large. In doing so, she provides a fascinating and rarely seen glimpse into their intriguing world..
Price: $9.80 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This new edition is the single largest resource ever compiled on Europe's monastery and convent guesthouses. It is an extraordinary guidebook featuring more than 275 places of spiritual retreat in 17 countries including updated maps and information..
Price: $12.90 [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: $10.12 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In 1899, when The Convent was written, stern parents would threaten their wayward children with a stay at a nunnery if they didn't improve their conduct. If Angelica, the author of The Convent, is to be believed, monasteries and nunneries should be the last places in the world where upstanding parents should dispatch their naughty children.

Angelica has been sent to a convent and it is there that she experiences the first thrusts of love and passion. Her unusual education was not derived from visiting male relatives and friends. Angelica learned all she knew from the droll and exploring residents of the convent itself and the monks of a nearby monastery who offered the nuns more than salvation.
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Price: $1.59 [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.
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Price: $13.99 [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: $109.41 [Notify me when price goes down.]