I have read the whole series. The setting of the first is a monastery, but it’s full of DUDES, not chicks. I like the series a lot, actually. The sophomore effort wasn’t as good as the first, but the third and especially the 4th are fabulous. Couldn’t put them down.

I, too, am drawn to the simplicity and stillness of monastic life. Whether reading about it or experiencing it for a few days, it renders this chaos we all seem to have bought into — cell phones, email, texting, blackberries, let alone calendars bombarded with scheduled events … we’re always called to be “on” — as having gone too far. I appreciate the monastic message of “when you make the bread, make the bread.” That is, don’t talk on the phone and read a book at the same time. I’m woefully entrenched in the Internet life and multi-tasking, but I love, as you say, the thought of “the cool stone chapel of Brede.”

I had to put Frevisse aside. I started reading it right after Godden’s “Brede,” and when I confused the mention of Perpetua in “The Novice’s Tale” to Perpetua in “Brede,” I knew I needed a break from fictional nuns! Just yesterday, I put the Frevisse paperback series into a sack and walked it over to a neighbor’s house — she wants to read them.

Cut forward a few decades. I stumble upon the Loyola Classics version, very elegantly and irresistibly packaged. I’ve worked my way through Frevisse; I’ve solved monastery murders with Matthew Shardlake. My children are screaming; it’s chaos at work which always involves endless phone calls while things beep while I get further behind; rushing, rushing.

How can I not be drawn into the cool stone chapel of Brede? The sisters do not coordinate outfits with purses. It’s quiet. It’s still. There’s time to think, not just react. (There are years to think about how to react, it would seem.) Would I go crazy? In about five minutes. It is lovely to dip in for a time? Yes, and to joyfully return to the internet and sushi.