Hey, it's Empiro's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. I guess technically, today's book is a self-help book,

but it isn't like those 10 hacks to be more productive at the workplace kind of books. Instead,

Anna Gariga and Carmen Orbita are two academics who got fascinated by the lives of 16th century nuns,

so much so that they wrote a whole book about what we today can glean from the lives of these

women who lived in a convent so many years ago. The book is called convent wisdom,

and the two authors spoke to NPR's Asia Rosco about how they learned about everything from writing better emails to their own sexuality from researching nuns. That's after the break. This message comes from Bayer. Science is a rigorous process that requires questions, testing, transparency, and results that can be proven.

This approach is integral to every breakthrough Bayer brings forward.

Innovations that save lives and feed the world.

Science Delivers.com.

Modern life is full of pressure.

Deadlines, doom scrolling, dating apps. it can make you want to return to a simpler

time, maybe a convent in 16th century Spain. A new book makes the case that even though nuns in the

1500s may not have had to deal with screens, they did have to grapple with frenemies, overbearing church officials, and shaky

finances. And convent wisdom scholars Anna Gariga and Carmen Urbita scour the writings of Renaissance

era nuns for nuggets of insights that can apply to current day dilemmas. Anna Gariga and Carmen Arbita join us now. Welcome to the

program. Thank you so much. You both have PhDs from Brown University. That's where you met. How did you

both end up so fascinated with nuns? And let's start with you, Anna. For me, it was because I was studying in Spain

and I was focusing on early modern literature. I was like, I want to read a woman that was able

to publish in the 16th century. And the only option was Saint-Risavila. So after that, I was

truly fascinated by the way all these women were able to

revolt and to write. So it was the nuns. They were the ones who were able to publish,

and that's how you got interested in them. Yeah. And Carmen, what about you? I was studying at Oxford.

...