Listen free for 30 days
Listen with offer
-
Stone Yard Devotional
- Narrated by: Ailsa Piper
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
£0.00 for first 30 days
Buy Now for £12.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Summary
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024
The new novel by Charlotte Wood, the Stella Prize-winning author of The Natural Way of Things and The Weekend.
A fearless exploration of forgiveness, grief and the complicated beauty of female friendship.
Burnt out and in need of retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return to the place she grew up, finding solace in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Australian outback. She doesn't believe in God, or know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive existence almost by accident.
As she gradually adjusts to the rhythms of her new life, she ruminates on her childhood in the nearby town, turning again and again to thoughts of her mother, whose early death she can't forget.
But 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 disappeared decades before, presumed murdered. And finally, a troubling visitor plunges the narrator further back into her past.
'Both profound and addictively entertaining. I loved it'
CLARE CHAMBERS, bestselling author of Small Pleasures
'Beautiful, strange and otherworldly'
PAULA HAWKINS, bestselling author of A Slow Fire Burning
'Subtly powerful and utterly engrossing'
CLAIRE FULLER, bestselling author of Unsettled Ground
What listeners say about Stone Yard Devotional
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- MEB
- 17-08-24
Enjoyable read but not exceptional
This is a quiet, low-key novel, in which little happens and little is resolved. The book is well-written and well read, I enjoyed the narrator's company for the duration, but there is no story-arc as such and not much in the way of character development. Enjoyable enough but why it's nominated for an award escapes me. As an exploration of the female monastic life, I think Sylvia Townsend Warner's "The Corner that Held Them" is a more rewarding read. On the plus-side, the environmental "message" is subtly conveyed and the reader need not feel preached at.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Barbaramcdonagh
- 09-08-24
The layers of an onion 🧅
It took me a while to invest in the narrator and this book .However ,I was thoroughly engrossed as the little pieces of a very fine jigsaw came together .Grateful .
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- tina price
- 10-08-24
Beautiful
An absolutely beautiful piece of contemplative writing. The narrator discusses her move back to her home town to join a monastic community. Despite an unclear faith and doubts about her ability to pray, she returns to face up to grief and sorrow, thinking deeply and carefully about her past life and the way she now lives. Her mother, such a loss to her, walks gently through the novel, living her life in retrospect, to her own values and standard.
This is not a gripping yarn but a beautiful exploration of grief and living a life as well as possible. Highly recommended.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- A reader
- 25-07-24
Beautifully read and moving story
I loved this book - the narrator is wonderful at conveying the protagonist's grief as she accepts she needs to escape her world and, while not religious, finds solace in a religious community. The form is interesting - lots of pauses and gear changes as the protagonist records her new life in the quiet community and looks back on her life before. Very moving, in part because of the outstanding and perfectly paced narration.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Julie Brown
- 29-09-24
Profound, moving, spiritual.
An unusually contemplative and quiet story of a middle aged woman who reflects on aspects of her past life after having chosen the disappear from it into a spiritual community.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sense of place
For some reason I started out thinking this was a memoir, rather than a novel, so found it gripping. However, having realised that it was actually a novel I was ultimately disappointed… I felt there should have been more resolution at the end, and I ultimately thought what is the point?? I think the author has a duty to resolve, or at least point to something in the future and I was disappointing not to get this.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!