43 books like Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen

Olsen’s landmark book (1994) sheds light on how the writings and creativity of marginalized women and working-class people are often disenfranchised and the circumstances and forces that seek to silence them. I discovered her seminal ideas while in the midst of writing my Ph.D. dissertation at Gonzaga University on Helga Estby that emerged later as Bold Spirit. I was trying to figure out why her family burned hundreds of the pages Helga secretly wrote of her audacious journey across America. This evolved into my closing chapter in Bold Spirit on “the silencing of family stories,” which prompts readers to consider their own family silences. She raises important questions, especially for writers, on what nurtures creativity. 

I’d never have guessed I’d be so beguiled by a book about moss. Or, more precisely, about Alma Whittaker, a bryologist observing moss.

I enjoyed this book's ‘differentness’. It’s an episodic story, unusually structured, with various life-like trailings-off of plotlines, characters, and marriage, but no less gripping for that.

Researching natural sciences in the nineteenth century is skilfully described, but it’s Alma who lingers in the mind. Its sentences, I thought, are beautiful too.

Hurston, a prominent novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist during the Harlem Renaissance time, she finds her greatest recognition in her fictional book Their Eyes Were Watching God. She grew up in Eatonville, Florida, the first incorporated black town in America.  A graduate of Barnard College, she attended graduate classes at Columbia University and receives several honors for her ethnographic research as a pioneer writer of “folk fiction’ about the black South.

Although she gained considerable fame for a brief time, she dies in near obscurity and poverty although a resurgence of her writings influenced a new group of black women writers. I especially valued reading Dust Tracks on the Road, her poignant autobiographical memoir first published in 1942 after reading Alice Walker’s essay of her search to find Hurston’s unmarked grave. 

Jane Kirkpatrick, a New York Times bestselling writer of over 35 books, specializes in fictionalizing true stories of prominent women in history who are often unknown to today’s readers. Something Worth Doing, a historical novel, brings to life the story of Abigail Scott Duniway, an early suffragist and pioneer in the 19th century Pacific Northwest. As a married woman and mother of eight living children, Kirkpatrick weaves together Dunn's challenges as a newspaper publisher, primary breadwinner, and national speaker fighting for the rights of women and the vote. 

Kirkpatrick, a psychologist, illustrates the universal pulls between career and family in a male-dominated sphere. One of my favorite genres is historical fiction and Kirkpatrick backs her novels with significant historical research.  

In 2012, Pope Benedict declared Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th Century nun, to be Saint Hildegard, recognizing “her holiness of life and the originality of her teaching.” This biography of Hildegard is Matthew Fox’s third book on this once-obscure nun, who from childhood had prophetic and God-inspired visions. Hildegard documented those revelations in her art, music, and writings. At a time when the church cited Eve as an example of how women are innately evil, Hildegard argued that the divine feminine existed to balance the masculine tendency to lord power over others. Although her efforts did little to budge the gender lines within the church hierarchy, she did lead a successful charge to keep nuns away from the clutches of abusive priests by establishing separate monasteries. That alone should have earned her sainthood, in my opinion. However, her honors were earned on many fronts. Her botanical and medicinal texts are… show more.

Mirabai Starr weaves together the threads of feminine mysticism from many different spiritual traditions with a poetic sensibility, yet her feet are planted firmly on Mother Earth as she validates women's wisdom throughout the ages.

I was thrilled with the way this book shows that touching the earth—with all its human pain and suffering, death and loss, even the grief over losing a child as happened to Mirabai in her own journey—is a pathway to the divine, often moreso than meditation and breath work.

The women mystics proudly proclaim that everything is holy, and lead us into surrender to the mystery of the Great Mother. Women reading this book will feel seen and heard.

Editor Jane Hirschfield writes that she is interested in “women who could not be held back from their chosen paths or spiritual practice.” And so am I. This collection includes writings by intrepid women over centuries and landscapes, representing an array of spiritual traditions stretching back to the beginning of recorded time. The canon of spiritual writings that have come down to us across cultures rarely includes the words of women. Hirschfield has taken steps to correct this omission. From the first entry – c. 2300 BCE – through a joyful poem of liberation from one of the earliest female Buddhist followers to Hildegard of Bingen and Emily Dickenson, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Owl Woman, and Penny Jessye. And beyond. Women across cultures, religious traditions, and centuries have inner lives that provoke them to write, sing and shout.

During my years in Germany, a favorite getaway was a stroll through the vineyards above the town of Rüdesheim am Rhein to the Abbey of St, Hildegard.

Well-familiar with the life of this brilliant, multi-faceted woman, I was hesitant to undertake P.K. Adams’ novel The Greenest Branch, especially when I discovered it was written in the first person. To my delight, I found my fears to be unfounded. The author has masterfully captured what I believe to be the spiritual essence of Hildegard in both her narrative and dialogue.

Adams’ portrayal of Hildegard’s struggle against the misogyny of the 12th century Church, as personified by Prior Helenger, forms a central conflict to the novel; as does her self-denial of worldly pleasures of the flesh while embracing the pain of self-mortification.

This book is not just a rich and detailed portrait of various times and places throughout the medieval period—it explains how history itself is written, how certain stories are told (and prioritized), and how certain individuals are remembered.

From page 1, Ramirez draws you in with her irresistible storytelling, making historical figures seem like the real people they were. She corrects popular misconceptions about the Middle Ages as well as how history is itself created.

Each chapter begins with a discovery, which is just as dramatic and exciting as the medieval subject matter. I love how Ramirez paints a picture of the past using sight, sound, and smell, drawing on the evidence provided by jewelry, weaponry, coins, manuscripts, and even human remains.

I love this story because it portrays people choosing to die to themselves in order to live for God.

These Benedictine sisters are not running away from the world. Each woman faces her past, present, and future through the lens of devotion to God. Centering their lives around worship has cost them dearly but, as I read, I began to grasp its worth with greater clarity. I’ve seen myself that believers in Christ who die to themselves, paradoxically, seem more alive.

This House of Brede made me reflect on the concept of losing your life to save it. It reminded me that losing my life is tragically inevitable, but saving it is gloriously possible.