For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain by Victoria Mackenzie (Bloomsbury, £14.99 (Church Times SPECIAL OFFER PRICE £12.99); 978-1-5266-4788-7).
“In 1413, two women meet for the first time in the city of Norwich. Margery has left her 14children and husband behind to make her journey. Her visions of Christ — which have long alienated her from her family and neighbours, and incurred her husband's abuse — have placed her in danger with the men of the Church, who have begun to hound her as a heretic. Julian, an anchoress, has not left Norwich, nor the cell to which she has been confined, for 23 years. She has told no one of her own visions — and knows that time is running out for her to do so. The two women have stories to tell one another. Stories about girlhood, motherhood, sickness, loss, doubt and belief; revelations more powerful than the world is ready to hear. Their meeting will change everything.”
Beauty and Meaning: The T.S. Eliot Lectures of the Most Reverend Metropolitan Anthony Bloom by Metropolitan Anthony Bloom (DLT £19.99 (£17.99); 978-1-915412-19-5).
“The first lecture addresses Meaning, and the ways we relate to things only insofar as they mean something to us. In the second and third lectures, Metropolitan Anthony discusses Beauty and its moral characteristics. The fourth lecture considers Ugliness, its significance and creative potential.”
Archaeology of Jesus’ Nazareth by Ken Dark (OUP, £25 (£22.50); 978-0-19-286539-7).
“This is the first book on the archaeology of first-century Nazareth. It outlines the latest archaeological evidence, placing the Gospels’ account of Jesus’s youth in the Bible, and origins of Christian pilgrimage, in a new context. The book concentrates on the fascinating Sisters of Nazareth site in the centre of the present city. The book draws to its conclusion by means of a discussion of this historical existence for Jesus and the implications of the archaeology of Nazareth for understanding the Gospels.”
Selected by Frank Nugent, of the Church House Bookshop, which operates the Church Times Bookshop.
