100 books like The Evening and the Morning

There have been too many novels featuring the story of King Arthur to count; this is my favorite. I found it (and the following two books in the series) really captured the idea of who Arthur was, why he was needed, and why he did what he did at the time for me.

It was the first Cornwell novel I read, and he has become my favourite novellist. I think he writes battle scenes better than anyone–he puts you in the middle of the action and makes you feel the visceral nature of combat (especially in his Arthurian and medieval books). If anyone is looking for a place to start with Arthurian fiction but doesn’t know where to begin, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this book and series. 

I remember buying The Long Ships about twenty years ago on Potrero Hill in San Francisco. Generally speaking, 1950s Swedish novels about Vikings are not my thing, but there was an absolutely over-the-top introduction from Michael Chabon.…'best novel ever’ kind of stuff…so I bought it.

Since then, I have recommended it to dozens of people, almost all of whom have, often to their surprise, loved it and recommended it to others. My favorite recommendation was to a pal whose daughter absconded with it and was reading it on a parapet in southern Spain when a guy came by and asked her what she was reading. She showed him the book, he perused it gravely, and then tore out the frontispiece and used it to roll a joint. This is a very satisfying book in every way.

Don’t get it confused with the derivative Norwegian comedy series, Norsemen. The Long Ships… show more.

Alfred Duggan is one of those authors I stumbled across by accident (a random discovery at my local library) a man whose books I immediately started collecting once I’d finished his first. His novels are impeccably researched and he’s one of the few authors I know who seem to slip effortlessly into the minds of their characters, offering an authentic viewpoint of their world through their eyes. This novel is set in the dying days of Roman Britain and uses what few historical details are known of the period to give us a completely credible tale of the ‘little emperors’ of the Romano-British administration as they attempt to cling to power after the departure of the last legions to the Continent.

My interest in history once again comes to the fore in this book by Edward Rutherfurd. It is an epic saga that takes readers into the lives of five families in Salisbury, beginning in the Ice Age to 1985.

It follows two rival families who sought revenge on each other for over 400 years, whilst a stonemason’s family’s constructions spanned from the creation of Stonehenge to Salisbury Cathedral. It touches on the family of an exiled Roman soldier and an aristocrat who fell from grace, taking many generations for the family fortune to be revived.

This is a fascinating read, showing how the families, the land, and the buildings around them evolved and the skills that brought Salisbury to its intriguing place today. I found it a little heavy going at times, but it was well worth my perseverance. 

This book made me rethink how we consider the idea of the Middle Ages–full stop.

Pegg tracks the medieval period through the concept of holiness, and if you think that might be boring, then I have got news for you about how wild medieval (and Late Antique!) people were.

Whether it is being stoked to be sent to your death in the gladiatorial ring or writing transcendent fiction about how the girl you had a crush on as a teenager is waiting for you in heaven, Pegg shows that medieval people were constantly rethinking what it meant to be alive and how to square that in a Christian society. I guarantee it will make Trad Caths absolutely livid.  

The deepest level of witchcraft and magical experience is psychological.

Most executed witches are unlikely to have carried out the practices of which they were accused – certainly not attendance at the sabbat, and not usually deliberate magical harm. But magical practitioners offered a wide range of mostly positive services: healing, finding lost and stolen goods, and love magic.

Edward Bever’s book is densely-written, often quoting from medical sources, but worth persevering with: it opens up a realm of magical action and experience. My favourite chapters deal with how beneficial magic was perceived to have worked, but there is darker material too – including intentional curses.

What I really like about this book is that the one-page introduction, "What is Religion?" mentions several important tenets of religious literacy as described by the American Academy of Religion, such as the fact that religions are internally diverse, and that religion is deeply embedded in most or all aspects of human culture and life. The latter of these underscores the importance for all to be religiously literate, even people who self-identify as nonreligious. The book covers only five major religions (Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam), and doesn’t seem biased towards any one of them, giving the usual general description of each. The full-spread illustrations showing many different aspects of life within each religious tradition are engaging for kids (and adults!).

This book packs a lot into <100 pages and does so very comfortably. Although there are other books better focused on the key issue of religious literacy, I particularly like that this book specifically includes several aspects of religious literacy, such as the fact that religions are all internally diverse, not monolithic, and that we all have a perspective, a situatedness, from which we see and interpret the world around us. In addition to familiarizing readers with common features of common religions like many books do, this one goes further and includes sections on philosophy of religion, on religion and violence in our world, and on religion and science, all of which encourage valuable thinking and reflection. The book does a relatively good job of meeting the stated goal of promoting understanding and respect of different people and different types of belief and nonbelief.

From an evangelical Christian perspective, this reference work covers a wide range of topics via short, easy-to-understand, fact-based, and information-packed essays that range from just a paragraph to several pages. It’s an excellent research tool to which I contributed several essays. Some of the best researchers, scholars, and experts in the field of world religions were part of the large editorial team that produced this benchmark work.

What I like best about this book is that it is particularly well edited by one of the best scholars of religion today (Martin Marty), and that it is very unbiased, not favoring any one religion over others, simply stating what believers in each faith tradition generally believe and do. It is a little light on indigenous religions but gives a good overview of and introduction to the major faith traditions, covering the Abrahamic, Vedic, and other major traditions in adequate, appropriate detail. Highly recommended.