Begg, Ean C. M., The Cult of the Black Virgin, Penguin, 1997.

Begg identifies some five hundred occurrences of Black Madonnas around the world. The author associates the dark-skinned Madonnas with paganism and Gnostic Christianity.

Flynn, Nick, Blind Huber, Greywolf, 2002.

Flynn's poetry collection is based around the life of Frenchman François Hubert, a seventeenth-century blind beekeeper, whose lifelong study of bees was responsible for much of the understanding of bees' behavior.

Johnson, Elizabeth A., She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse, Crossroad, 1992.

Johnson's collection is considered one of the best basic works on the subject. It explains many of the feminist underpinnings to Kidd's portrayal of Our Lady of Chains in the novel.

Moody, Anne, Coming of Age in Mississippi, Doubleday, 1968.

Moody's firsthand account of growing up as an African American in the segregated South and participating in civil-rights protests is a...