Betsy, "China Court" is moving to the top of the stack tonight on the strength of your recommendation. I enjoyed Rumer Godden's kid books about dolls - adored "Miss Happiness and Miss Flower" and "Little Plum." I was a bit puzzled by her "In This House of Brede," but I think that was because she presented the monastic life as deeply satisfying and I never did quite get why. Probably because I'm too pagan to grok it.

I still have to finish up with Marie Antoinette - I'm only at the Affair of the Necklace. Sure am glad nobody has Right of Entry to watch me get dressed.

"Sun, Moon & Stars..." I know I can finish that book, really.

I loved In This House of Brede, probably because I've considered cloistered life. The details of her life before the convent have haunted me the more than ten years since I read the book, though.

I'm trying to remember what I read by Rumer Godden when I was younger. It was set in India, something about peacocks maybe? I'm pretty sure I liked it. I keep thinking the title is A Rumour of Peacocks but it's totally not, I'm just conflating her name with the title of another book I read around the same time, A Rumour of Otters (by Deborah someone, about a girl in New Zealand, anyone read it?).

Anyway. Might be time for a trip to the library...

Kate, The Peacock Spring? "Fifteen year old Una and her younger sister Hal, are forced to join their diplomat father in New Delhi."

Sounds about right, yeah. I know they had unusual names.

Wow, Beverly, the cloistered life? Really? Whyhow? This I would love to hear. You know, so I'd understand "Brede" better.

Kate, that would be Peacock Summer.

I get it confused with Harnessing Peacocks, which I didn't like as well.

Katerina, I am very introverted, and ADD. When I was contemplating cloistered life, I was still undiagnosed, and having dreadful problems understanding why I found it so difficult to focus on a task or a thought. The cloister would have removed a lot of static input, imposed a focus I couldn't seem to manage on my own, and would have been a sort of relief. Not, sadly perhaps, a religious motivation.

Ah, it sounds to me as if you wanted to have some time in the quiet white room to process all the jangling input the world provides. This I get. Being the Bride of Jesus, NSM.

One of the things I thought Ron Hansen did very well in Mariette in Ecstasy is present the zen-like grace of the daily hours of cloistered life. It's the best part of the book, IMO. Agnes of God and a few tv movies about hysterical young nuns manifesting stigmata had come out by the time I read his book so that part of it was not so interesting nor provocative.

Drat, I wrote a long thing about Annie Dillard and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek but I took so long, my log in name was spat out. Anyway, her parents live about 1/2 mile away from my parents now-former house, where I grew up. Annie grew up in Pittsburgh, but her little sister, Molly is my age and grew up in my home town. (who is it also from PA? let's email!) Their father, Frank Doak, about whom much of An American Childhood is written, taught school at the private school in Rolling Rock, and performed in all the local theater productions of The Valley Players. He's also in Day of the Dead, George Romero's film, playing a radio announcer. He was our only local movie star as a result.

I lurved Pilgrim at Tinker Creek but my book group, nsm. If you like PaTC too, then also try Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. Also maybe Enslaved by Ducks.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek has been in my To Be Read pile for a while now. Maybe a year or so. Last year, when my back was all injured, one of the women in my writing class would call me and read to me from it. Very sweet.