CONVENT WISDOM

Worldly lessons from the sisterhood.

Scholars of Hispanic studies, creators of the podcast Las hijas de Felipe, and friends and colleagues at Brown University, Garriga and Urbita look to 16th- and 17th-century nuns for lessons about living in the modern world. “This is a book about cloisters, candlelight, mortifications, and hushed prayers,” they write, “but it is also a book about friendship, money, FOMO, love, lesbianism, procrastination, imposter syndrome, work, fame, and pop culture.” As graduate students, the authors bonded over their esoteric scholarship, finding that the nuns, originally “an object of research,” soon “became our most valuable survival tool, imparting a wealth of therapeutic teachings on how to endure isolation by navigating the stormy waters of friendship.” Considering friendship, the authors compare the nuns’ relationships with those of celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears; throughout the book, other well-known personalities—Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Taylor Swift, to name a few—also make appearances. Personal anecdotes abound: about dating as lesbians, for example, or their predilection for people-pleasing. Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, they discovered, “knew better than anyone how to confuse her audience with a veil of submission, humility, and feigned ignorance, only to suddenly tear through it with a whiplash of audacity.” To better assert themselves, the wily Sor Juana taught them “to cloak our emails in rhetorical finesse and to at least flirt with abandoning the conciliatory route when the situation calls more for a shout than for a scheme.” A nun who took her vows at the age of 75 offered insights about aging; other nuns gave the authors perspective about gaining social recognition. These colorful portraits of assorted holy women make them seem palpably contemporary.

A charming and quirky dual memoir.