December HistoryCAT: Religions and Religious Festivals

Welcome to the last month of the 2024 HistoryCAT!

This month we will read about religions and religious festivals. This is a broad topic with several options. You could read about the history of a specific religion or a religious leader or someone who was famous for their faith. Another option is to read about the history of a religious festival or specific festival traditions. Furthermore, you could read a historical novel or a classic novel featuring a religious festival. There are many historical novels, classics and Regency romances featuring Christmas. I tried to find suitable fiction books set during non-Christian holidays but did not find any, so if you have any suggestions, please share them in this thread.

If any further ideas come to your mind, please post them here, and tell us what your reading plans for this CAT are!

You can find the wiki here: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2024_HistoryCAT

>1 MissBrangwen: Three novels with a non-Christian religious setting that immediately spring to mind are

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, a fictional biography of the Buddha

Creation by Gore Vidal. Religious figures the protagonist meets include: Zoroaster, Gautama (the Buddha), Mahavira (founder of Jainism), Confucius, and Lao Tzu.

The Gardens of Light by Amin Maalouf, a fictional biography of Mani.

I'm going to see the new movie, Bonhoffer on Friday, so I think I will read God is in the Manger by Bonhoffer, which is an advent book as well as tying in with the movie and this Cat.

I've just finished reading Theft of an Idol by Dana Stabenow, which sort of fits here. Set in Alexandria and Memphis during the reign of Cleopatra VII, one of the issues in the background to the story is the decline in popularity of some of the native Egyptian gods in favour of the syncretistic gods supported by the Ptolemies.

I read The Bible With and Without Jesus by Amy-Jill Levine, which is a fascinating look at a set of Old Testament/Tanakh passages that are referenced in the New Testament in their original context and then how Jewish and Christian readers and scholars have interpreted them since the time of Christ.

I have finally finished Romola, all 692 pages of it, where George Eliot shows us the political and religious shenanigans in Renaissance Florence at the time of Savonarola. The first book spends a lot of time and pages on the religious holidays, far too much in my opinion.

Starting Damascus by Christos Tsiolkas, a novel about Saul/Paul of Tarsus

I listened to The Christmas Hirelings by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, narrated by Richard Armitage. It is a sweet Christmas story that depicts some of the Christmas festivities of late Victorian times.

I read We Survived the End of the World by Steven Charleston, who is a Native American Episcopal bishop writing about apocalyptic prophecy as part of Native Americans' response to pandemics, genocide, and displacement.

COMPLETED Damascus by Christos Tsiolkas

My review:

A novel exploring various episodes in the life of Saul/St. Paul of Tarsus and other figures in the first 60 years of the church.

The author builds a brutal world, though I'm not sure whether he just has a brutal view of the world or it's a riposte against those who romanticise paganism. He offers some tantalising glimpses of other possibilities for the development of Christianity which were not realised. I'm not sure why I kept putting off reading this, but I'm glad I finally did so and I'll keep an eye open for the author's other works.

Favorite Wife: Escape from Polygamy / Susan Schmidt
4 stars

Susan Ray was only 15 when she fell in love with Verlon LeBaron, 23 years her senior. He also already had five other wives. They were part of the FLDS (the polygamous Mormons). Verlon’s brother, Ervil, tried to win Susan away from Verlon, but lucky for Susan (in a way), she realized something was “off” and went back to Verlon. Once Susan and Verlon got married, though, Verlon was rarely home as Susan tried to get along with Verlon’s other wives, tried to feed herself (and later on, her multiple children) and get (rare) time with Verlon. Verlon was also in a bit of a power struggle (within the church) with Ervil, as Ervil lured more people (including some of Susan’s family) away in order to help with his “blood atonement” (that is, murders).

The vast bulk of the book was while she was part of the FLDS. I would have liked a bit more about her life after she left, but this was really just a chapter or two toward the end of the book, but I did appreciate that she also brought the reader up to date on many of the other people she knew and mentioned in this book. I have read a few other books about the LeBarons, but they must have been long enough ago that I didn’t remember a whole lot about this part of the FLDS (Susan’s story takes place in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s; many of the other FLDS books I’ve read were later in time after the Jeffs’ family was ruling).