“Stone Yard Devotional” was the last book I read from the 2024 Booker Prize Shortlist. MY FAVORITE!!!!
I’ve read it twice….equally rewarding both times. I’ll read it again.
It’s a rare find—both tender and profound— and utterly wonderful….
….quiet, reflective, and intimate.
Even to see nature revealed with such unflinching precision stood out for me….and that’s not all. Many themes, universal themes, issues, and vehemency are explored with resonance and meaningfulness—with brilliant storytelling skill.
Ethical, spiritual, religious and moral quandaries are explored ……as well as love, loss, grief, guilt, and forgiveness. (best portrayal of forgiveness I’ve read in years).
The beauty and emotional integrity of the writing is exquisite—I felt it in my core. The book was ‘also’ an invitation to sit with one’s own thoughts, memories, and emotions.

This powerful novel, intertwines, passion, and mourning. In an unlikely setting—in a small religious monastery community, an unnamed middle aged woman (not religious herself) — comes to retreat.
“I had a need, an animal need, to find a place I had never been, but which was still, in some undeniable way, my home”.

Our protagonists parents were both deceased and her marriage was failing. She thinks about her mother - awakening thoughts - more than her father, husband, or friends.
About her mother, whom she remembers loving being in the garden more than the house…saving scraps for the compost…
She says:
“I never knew anyone else who had her reverence for the Earth itself”.
“My mother said that anything that had once spent alive should go back to the soil”.

There is more - much more….the nuns, other guests and their stories, (even a tale about the remains of a murdered nun), daily routines, memories of being a past bully, climate change, capitalism, services, faith, good & evil concepts, including a plague of mice infestation.

Again….my favorite book on the Booker Shortlist….and absolutely one of the best books of the year.
The prose is simple and understated, but the insights are complex.
Charlotte Wood knows how to make a story build…..(shimmering us with psychological precision), then leave us with a satisfying thoughtful ending.

Highly recommended 5 strong stars