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Stone Yard Devotional

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Stone Yard Devotional

By: Charlotte Wood
Narrated by: Ailsa Piper
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A woman abandons her city life and marriage to return to the place she grew up, finding solace in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Monaro.

She does not believe in God, doesn't know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive life almost by accident. As she gradually adjusts to the rhythms of monastic life, she ruminates on her childhood in the nearby town. She finds herself turning again and again to thoughts of her mother, whose early death she can't forget.

Disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signalling a new battle against the rising infestation.

Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who left the community decades before to minister to deprived women in Thailand - then disappeared, presumed murdered.

Finally, a troubling visitor to the monastery pulls the narrator further back into her past.

With each of these disturbing arrivals, the woman faces some deep questions. Can a person be truly good? What is forgiveness? Is loss of hope a moral failure? And can the business of grief ever really be finished?

A meditative and deeply moving novel from the Stella Prize-winning author of The Natural Way of Things and The Weekend.©2023 Charlotte Wood (P)2023 Allen and Unwin Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Small Town & Rural Women's Fiction Women's Voices Fiction Heartfelt
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Loved this book, which feels like a gift, and the performance from Ailsa Piper is just perfect. For those in need of space and solace.

An instant Australian classic

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This is a beautifully written, excellently read and sparsely observed narrative of the life of a nun in a closed order and her life before seclusion. She entered the nunnery in a slough of despair and her self imposed incarceration and separation from the world becomes like the biblical parable of Jesus in the wilderness. Like Jesus she encounters three challenges - the return of remains of a murdered nun, her re-encounter with someone she had wronged in her youth and an horrific plague of mice. All of this told in meticulous delicacy that had me thinking of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain. A beautiful book shortlisted for the Booker. I haven’t read the others yet, but at this stage I want this book to win

Beautiful

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I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It made mw wish the author was my friend. I found it to be an intimate narrative, gripping but subtle.

beautifully written

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Stone Yard Devotional is remarkable. As stark and dry as the landscape in which it is set, the exceptional use of language in this book evoked imagery which was full of love and compassion. To me it is a heartfelt reflection on the sweet and sad realities of life. The narration of the story by Ailsa Piper was wonderful; it was so well done I felt like I was sitting beside her while she told me the story.

An exceptional story

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This novel was suggested by a friend when I requested a well written recommendation having just listened to something very inelegant. It is very beautifully written but not much happens and there is no character development to speak of. A bit too meditative for me at the moment..

Elegantly written but ultimately unsatisfying.

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