Since I last posted, I’ve read and listened to three books and made it half way through another…

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene: An interpretation of the Gnostic Gospel. I also read some of the other gospels in The Essential Gnostic Gospels by Alan Jacobs. These were book group selections. Most of the Gnostic Gospels were found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945. The Gospel of Mary, however, was acquired in Cairo in 1896 as part of a codex that also included the Aprocrypha of John and The Sophia of Jesus Christ. These two were also included in the Nag Hammadi collections. With the exception of two short fragments found at Oxyrhynchus in Northern Egypt, this is the only copy of the Gospel of Mary. The extant text is missing about 10 pages. But what remains is something that is missing from the Bible: the voice of a woman. You can read the Gospel of Mary at the Gnostic Society. They also house the Nag Hammadi library.

In preparation for book group, I bought Elaine Pagels’ The Gnostic Gospels but haven’t had a chance to read it. During book group, I took advantage of the Kindle to purchase two more. I bought Pagels’ Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, which is evidently concerned with Pagels’ own faith and the battle between the Gospels of Thomas and John. I also bought Ron Miller’s The Gospel of Thomas: A Guidebook for Spiritual Practice, recommended by a member of the group. They all look interesting but I just wonder when I am going to read all these books. It is easier to ignore the Kindle books so I’m going to work on the analog books first.

Which simply underscores the fact that I’ve been dealing with digital books almost exclusively for the past few weeks. I’ve been listening to audio books: wonderful recordings of Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus Trilogy. I have finished the first two (The Amulet of Samarkand and The Golem’s Eye) and am almost done with the third. Just terrific…I am using them as an incentive to get some exercise but I’ve also had a couple road trips so I got through them quickly. Next up on the audio list is Confessions of a Jane Austin Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler.

On the Kindle, I’m reading Sharon Kay Penman’s riveting fictional account of a fascinating family: Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine and their four sons. It’s called Devil’s Brood, and it picks up where Time and Chance and When Christ and His Saints Slept, a book I read several years ago, left off. Penman brings these people to life, and I’m at the part where Henry and Eleanor are beginning to reconcile after their estrangement. She is still a prisoner but in a gilded cage. I was reminded of the scenes in Penman’s Welsh trilogy where she describes the relationship of Llewellyn and Joanna. That series was definitely the impetus for spending time in Wales last year.

Along with Penman, I’m browsing through one of the books I bought at the Harvest Festival, The Age of Chivalry, a book from the National Geographic Society. In includes a fold out of the Bayeux Tapestry.=, the graphic novel version of a momentous historical event.

I dug through the big pile of books in the bedroom and pulled out all the books related to English history:
Penman’s The Sunne in Splendor, the story of Edward IV and Richard II and the War of the Roses. The content goes along with a book on my Kindle, The White Queen, which focuses on Edward’s wife, Elizabeth Woodville. I can’t wait to see how Penman interprets the story of the two princes.

What else is on the list?
Here Was a Man, Norah Lofts
The Rose Without a Thorn, Jean Plaidy
Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe, Nancy Goldstone
The Wives of Henry VIII, Antonia Fraser

And, how could I forget? I did read an analog book: Queen’s Bastard by Robin Maxwell, a fictional story of the son of Elizabeth I and Robin Dudley, Earl of Leicester. It was fun and referenced another book I’ve read by Maxwell: The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn. I bought it in Hay on Wye at the Hay Castle Bookstore.