A Break with Charity by Ann Rinaldi

July 31, 2012 by Christina

Fiction — print. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003. Originally published 1992. 320 pgs. Purchased. Subtitled “A Story About the Salem Witch Trials”, Rinaldi’s novel fictionalizes the life of Susanna English, a fourteen-year-old girl living in the Puritan village of Salem in 1962. Susanna desperately wants to join the circle of girls who meet every week at the parsonage. What she doesn’t realize is that the girls are about to set off a torrent of false accusations leading to the imprisonment and execution […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Fiction, New England, North America, Religion, Reread, United States, Young Adult • Tags: Ann Rinaldi

Mitzvah Girls by Ayala Fader

April 18, 2012 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Princeton University Press, 2009. 260 pgs. Library copy. I originally picked up Fader’s book after reading another book about young, female Hasidic Jews back in January of last year. Subtitled “Bringing up the Next Generation of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn”, this book takes on a more scholarly air in its examination of the education and raising on Hasidic boys and girls. Do you know Hasidim is actually divided into sects? I have no idea until Fader’s book […]

Categories: 2012 Reads, Nonfiction, North America, Religion, United States • Tags: Ayala Fader

Answer Them Nothing by Debra Weyermann

December 23, 2011 by Christina

Nonfiction — eBook. Chicago Review Press, 2011. 304 pgs. Free download. Polygamy and fundamentalist religions are two of my own interests so I had to read it when I found this book available for download from my public library. Having lived in Texas during the YFZ Ranch raid, this book was particularly interesting because of its examination of just how hands-off the police and public officials are when it comes to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. […]

Categories: 2011 Reads, Nonfiction, North America, Religion, United States • Tags: Debra Weyermann

Leaving the Saints by Martha Beck

June 12, 2011 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Crown Publishers, 2005. 307 pgs. Library copy. Subtitled “How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith”, Beck’s memoir begins with her wedding to John in the Salt Lake City temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One can only enter the temple if they have a card assuring the gate keeper of their good standing within the church, and what occurs in the LDS (Mormon) temples alludes non-Mormon writing about the religion. But […]

Categories: 2011 Reads, Nonfiction, North America, Religion, United States • Tags: Martha Beck

Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers by Stephanie Wellen Levine

January 26, 2011 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. New York University Press, 2003. 255 pgs. Library copy. Subtitled “An Intimate Journey Amongst Hasidic Girls”, Levine’s book was recommended to me by Eva of A Striped Armchair. I had to submit an interlibrary loan request to get my hands on the book, but less than a week after returning to school my request was fulfill, I picked up the book, and read the entire thing. Lubavitcher Hasidim attempt to inspire secular Jews to become more observant […]

Categories: 2011 Reads, Nonfiction, North America, Religion, United States • Tags: Stephanie Wellen Levine

No god but God by Reza Aslan

December 22, 2010 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Random House, 2005. 310 pgs. Library copy. Subtitled “The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam”, Aslan’s book appealed to me because I wanted to read a book that presents Islam in a more positive light than A God Who Hates by Wafa Sultan in a relatively condensed and accessible way. I don’t know enough about the religion to be able to select something a little more in-depth and  specific, but I also did not want finish the […]

Categories: 2010 Reads, Middle East, Nonfiction, Religion • Tags: Reza Aslan

The Amish Wedding and Other Special Occasions of the Old Order Communities by Stephen Scott

August 30, 2010 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Good Books, 1988. 128 pgs. Received from PaperBackSwap. I’m quite sure this book wins for longest title. Ironic considering how thin the book is with just under 130 pages. Written by a member of a Plain group — the Old Order River Brethren — the book covers a Lancaster Amish Wedding, Old Order Mennonite Weddings, baptism, selecting a minister in Plain groups, Sunday services, death and a funeral, and briefly discusses holiday celebrations amongst the Amish, Mennonites, and […]

Categories: 2010 Reads, Amish, Nonfiction, North America, Religion, United States • Tags: Stephen Scott

God’s Brothel by Andrea Moore-Emmett

August 16, 2010 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Pince-Nez, 2004. 238 pgs. Library copy. Subtitled “The Extortion of Sex for Salvation in Contemporary Mormon and Christian Fundamentalist Polygamy and the Stories of 18 Women Who Escaped”, this book actually has nothing to do with polygamy practiced by other Christian Fundamentalist groups and everything to do with the eleven fundamentalist offshoots of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “At age 16, Carmen struggled with the priesthood issue [decision to allow blacks in the priesthood] […]

Categories: 2010 Reads, Nonfiction, North America, Religion, United States • Tags: Andrea Moore-Emmett

Mormon America by Richard N. Ostling and Joan K. Ostling

August 15, 2010 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. HarperSanFrancisco, 1999. 455 pgs. Library copy. This nonfiction book subtitled “The Beliefs, Rituals, Business Practices, and Well-Guarded Secrets of One of the World’s Fastest Growing and Moist Influential Religions” was recommended to me by a acquaintance I know who converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when we were both seniors in high school. We’re both sophomores in colleges now albeit at different universities since he attends Brigham Young University in Utah and I […]

Categories: 2010 Reads, Chunkster, Nonfiction, North America, Religion, United States • Tags: Joan K. Ostling, Richard N. Ostling

Far From Zion by Charles London

August 3, 2010 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Harper Collins, 2009. 310 pgs. Library copy. London’s book chronicles his search for “a global Jewish community”, one that does not feel the need to emigrate to Israel or follow Zionist ideology. The author sees being Jewish as being Zionist; that the two are inheritanytly intertwined. “Even though Zionism was born as a nineteenth-century nationalist movement, it had tied itself to Judaism, and I couldn’t relate to one without relation to the other. This contradiction kept me […]

Categories: 2010 Reads, Israel/Palestine, Middle East, Nonfiction, Religion • Tags: Charles London

Forces of Fortune by Vali Nasr

July 25, 2010 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Free Press, 2009. 308 pgs. Library copy. This book came to my attention after seeing Nasr interviewed on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”; his perceptions of the necessity of a middle class in the Muslim world intrigued me and I wanted to read more about his ideas. Subtitled “The Rise of the New Muslim Middle Class and What It Will Mean for Our World”, the book actually deals with much more than that as it traces […]

Categories: 2010 Reads, Middle East, Nonfiction, Religion • Tags: Vali Nasr

The Jewish Approach to God by Neil Gillman

July 8, 2010 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Jewish Lights, 2003. 164 pgs. Library copy. The book bills itself as “A Brief Introduction for Christians”, but Gillman doesn’t make a point of writing for just a Christian audience — at all. There are a smattering of references to the Christian religion, but there nearly as many references and comparisons to Islam, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhaism as Christianity. And as I was reading this book I kept thinking “tell me something I don’t know” because other than […]

Categories: 2010 Reads, Nonfiction, Religion • Tags: Neil Gillman