Reader recommendation: The Sisters of Sinai

Monitor readers share their favorite book picks.

I was thoroughly engaged and inspired by The Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels by Janet Soskice. This is a lively account of how two intrepid middle aged Scottish women – without university degrees (Cambridge University did not bestow degrees on women until 1948!) – against the advice and strictures of male-dominated Victorian society, traveled independently to the then-exotic Middle East in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and made one of the most important scriptural discoveries of modern times, then helped to translate it and bring it to world attention. They went on to endow a Presbyterian college Westminster College, at Cambridge, for centuries a Church of England bastion, and to receive many honorary degrees. This is a tale of intelligent, independent, courageous women who simply would not be held back by the narrow mindedness of Victorian society, academia or religious institutions.