Books About Religious Sisters

[QuizBowlNerd]

Recommendations to Read:

Thank You, Sisters: Stories of Women Religious and How They Enrich Our Lives by John Bookster Feister

• A great collection of stories written about sisters from the point of view of laypeople.

The Habit: A History of the Clothing of Catholic Nuns by Elizabeth Kuhns

• A really interesting and in-depth look at a topic you wouldn’t necessarily think about.

Recommendations to Avoid:

If Nuns Ruled the World: Ten Sisters on a Mission by Jo Piazza

• I was really psyched to read this, but it disappointed me pretty badly. A number of the sisters featured are unabashedly unfaithful to the Magisterium, and while there were a couple of interesting stories among the rest, it just did not inspire to anywhere near the same degree as Thank You, Sisters.

Sisters: Lives of Devotion and Defiance by Julia Lieblich

• I found this book to be perfectly awful in many respects. The prose dragged, the chapters were long, and it was largely uninspiring. I read it a couple of years ago, so my memory is a bit foggy, but I definitely recall that at least one (and possibly two) of the four sisters featured had left the Church by the end of the book. One of the unabashedly unfaithful sisters from If Nuns Ruled the World was also profiled here.

That’s my two cents, for what it’s worth. If you have any recommendations (or warnings), fiction or nonfiction, I’d love to hear them.

 

[Fauken]

The Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist published a great book, And Mary’s Yes Continues. It goes over the vocation itself, stories of how some of their sisters discerned into the community, and some advice on how to discern one’s own vocation. It has my recommendation!