The Birthday of the Theotokos

Though I'm sure thoughts of the liturgical calendar rarely if ever enter into publisher's timelines, it is nonetheless a felicitous coincidence that just this month, in time for today's feast of the nativity of the Theotokos, an affordable paperback edition of an important book published in 2005 (and very favourably reviewed thereafter in Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies), has been made available: Maria Vassilaki, Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium (Routledge, 2016), 416pp.

About this book we are told:

Fully illustrated in colour and black and white, Images of the Mother of God complements the successful exhibition catalogue of the 'Mother of God' exhibition at the Benaki Museum in Athens. It brings together the work of leading international authorities and younger scholars to provide a wide-ranging survey of how the Theotokos was perceived in the Byzantine world. It embraces the disciplines of art historians, archaeologists, traditional and feminist historians, as well as theologians, philologists and social anthropologists. Images of the Mother of God will appeal not just to those interested in Byzantine art and culture, but also to scholars of Western Europe in the Middle Ages who are looking for comparative materials in their own work.