NOVEL

Rumer Godden, In This House of Brede. (Simon & Schuster, $25). In this quietly absorbing 1969 novel, the author of the book on which Jean Renoir’s The River was based tells the story of a well-heeled British civil servant of a certain age who renounces the world, gives away her earthly possessions, and enters an abbey to become a cloistered nun. Whatever your religious views, if any, my guess is that you’ll be impressed, not least because Godden portrays the social life (so to speak) of a tightly-knit religious community with absolute candor (TT).