100 books like Beautiful Necessity

If you try to learn about the cultural history of the sacred female cross-culturally, you are likely to encounter the attitude in our patriarchal society that Goddesses couldn’t really have been widespread or ever been very important. A handy refutation can be found in this book, which contains information on over 11,000 Goddesses, nymphs, spirits, and deified women around the world. Grouped according to geographic regions, each entry gives you not only the translation of the Goddess’s name but also her story. That is, it’s a biographical dictionary because it gives the characteristics and the mythology associated with each Goddess. If you read through the entries for any one region, you will become immersed in a deeply poetic sense of the resonant cultural history underlying later developments.

There are hundreds of good books on Goddess spirituality. This one presents a heart-centered approach that blends beautiful color plates of historical Goddess art and artifacts from around the world with an accessible explication of each Goddess’s mythology and cultural significance—as well as Hallie Iglehart Austen’s invitation to join her in a brief guided mediation for each Goddess. Her stated goal is that readers might “come into balance, reclaiming the lost feminine deep within ourselves and sharing that wisdom and power with the world.” Here’s the opening to a preface entitled “A Millennial’s Initiation”: “Every book is a teacher, yet some books reveal truths that flow into your deepest roots and stay with you forever. Reading The Heart of the Goddess was, truly, a rite of passage for me.” 

Christianity is a syncretic religion, incorporating elements from earlier religious traditions, not only in the eastern Mediterranean basin but also in the lands where it spread. In each of the national shrines to the Virgin Mary in Europe, for instance, she is depicted with indigenous symbols or elements. Nowhere is the presence of the preChristian, indigenous sacred female stronger in such syncretic blendings than in Mexico with the Virgin of Guadalupe. The editor of this anthology refers to her as Guadalupe-Tonantzin, one of the variations of her name in the indigenous Nahautl language. These essays are scholarly, cultural, and engagingly personal. Don’t miss the brilliant essay by the late Gloria Anzaldua, as well as other memorable pieces by several well-known Mexican-American authors. This is lived religion.

With The Goddess Path the late Patricia Monaghan, author of The New Book of Goddesses and Heroines, bequeathed a well-designed and deeply wise pathway into spiritual engagement. She begins in “Basics of Goddess Spirituality” by answering commonly heard questions, then presents “Frameworks for Goddess Imagery” and “The Goddess Year” of rituals. The rest of the book is “The Goddess Revealed”: a chapter on each of twenty Goddesses, presenting her historical or traditional invocation, her myth and meaning, her symbols, and her feasts. At that point, Patricia Monaghan presents suggestions for invoking each Goddess through the reader’s personal ritual. Here she wisely speaks of the dynamics of women’s lives in modern culture and the power of this spiritual practice, flowing from extremely ancient roots into the presence of 21st-century women.

A woman left at the altar. A billionaire who bristles at love. Trapped together on a deserted island, can romance find them where rescue planes can’t? This desert island story is a gorgeous story of hope, healing, and love as Harley Wilson and Zachary Wolf find themselves relying on each other for survival. Their relationship changes a lot as they grow to truly care about each other, and once they are rescued it is impossible for them to go back to how things were before.

I absolutely love desert island stories as they strip away a lot of the hierarchy that people would have back in their old lives. Suddenly cash is not worth as much as firewood or food.

This book is all about relationships. It is about a relationship with God and his people and that we are certainly more alike than different. Woman Evolve takes the reader through the story of Eve and shows the reader just how she is relatable to each and every one of us. Eve was human and we are human. She had flaws and we have flaws. Her vulnerabilities are also ours and before we point the blame at her, or anyone else for that matter we can look right back at ourselves and understand how each and every one of us doesn’t necessarily deserve redemption, but God gave it anyway. Want a good read, this book will keep you turning page after page as the reader and author explores just how fallible, alike, and loved we all are.

I admire and deeply respect Vicki Noble, a wild, witchy woman whose legacy and ongoing activity paved the path for reviving the Goddess. Her book, Shakti Woman, was bequeathed to me from my best friend’s magickal collection after she crossed to the Other Side. This book is a fierce reclamation of the Divine Feminine within each of us and a rallying cry for equalizing the imbalance of energy that has caused so much mental, physical and spiritual instability, and pain. When the female is left out of the divine, we all suffer, and our Magick and Witchcraft are covered up. Shakti Woman brings us to wholeness because when we see ourselves as equally God and Goddess then we come to know that self-care is how we tend the Divine within. 

This is about a group of young women dealing with sex, contraception, powerlessness, and the conflicting demands of family and work. It appeared in 1963, was set in 1933, and was scandalously frank. But women’s lives and problems have not changed. Candace Bushnell, advised by her editor to write a modern version of it, produced Sex and the City. Need one say more?

Although this book is about the influential women of Arizona exclusively, they stand in for the many women who have made contributions to the history and culture of the entire West. Cleere begins with indigenous women, and moves on to both historic and modern women in medicine, the arts, business, education, and the law. The short biographies of the nearly forty women profiled here are just enough to whet the appetite for more, and are written in an engaging and accessible style.

I recommend Mapp and Lucia, first, because E.F. Benson is a hugely underrated humourist, and secondly, because there is a fundamental connection between his Lucia books and Austen’s. The societies are not dissimilar… the styles are both effortless. I recommend any lover of Austen to check out the Lucia books!