Aside from the books and articles in my “Notes on Sources” in An infinity of Little Hours (and the books the monks themselves read), these publications may be helpful:
Selected Books by Carthusians:
- Cloud of Unknowing
(anonymous classic spiritual work — by a Carthusian?) - Meditations of Guigo I, Prior of the Charterhouse
(short meditations by Guigo I, the Fifth Prior of the Grande Chartreuse) - Where Silence is Praise
(short meditations by Dom Augustine Guillerand)
Transitions from Religious to Secular life:
- Seminary: A Search
(Paul Hendrickson’s superbly written autobiography of his seven years (age 14-21) in a Catholic seminary and what happened to the men he knew after Vatican II. — out of print, available in online bookstores). - The Spiral Staircase: My Climb out of Darkness
(Karen Armstrong’s third autobiography which describes her life in the convent, her transition to secular life, and her life until 2004). - Unveiled: The Hidden Lives of Nuns
(a 2004 investigative report on the lives of nuns since the modernizations of Vatican II).
Classic Autobiographies of Two Women Contemplatives:
- The Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
- The Life of Saint Teresa of Âvila by Herself.
Other:
- · Dakota, The Cloister Walk
(Kathleen Norris – Norris’s introduction to and adoption of the Benedictine tradition) - · The Golden String
(Bede Griffiths – a Benedictine monk’s autobiography which addresses the connections between Christianity and Hinduism) - · Beyond the Darkness: A Biography of Bede Griffiths(Shirley du Boulay)
