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Sep 07, 2010

Caroline rated it:

It's not that I can't enjoy a memoir about exploring one's spirituality -- for all its problems, I really kind of enjoyed Eat, Pray, Love, the book with which this one will inevitably be compared. Dani Shapiro's memoir is blessedly shorter, and far less indulgent, and really struck much closer to home. She's a mom, I'm a mom; her father had a deep connection to and daily practice of his faith, just like my dad has. But for all that, and despite some lovely writing in spots, this left me just kin More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 07, 2010

Marty rated it:

This book was great. I thought it was going to be another project-for-a-year-memoir (like Eat, Pray, Love or The Happiness Project), this time about finding spirituality. But it's much better than that - instead of being a formulaic project, it's a book-length meditation on the meaning of life, on joy, on mortality, and on God and faith. It's beautifully written and deeply absorbing.

Early in the book, it's clear that the author is a pretty anxious person:

"Nothing More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 02, 2011

Kristen rated it:

I think I came to this book at exactly the right moment. Like Dani Shapiro, I am looking to “opt back in” to a religious - or, at least, a spiritual - identity and want to “form – if not an opinion – a set of feelings and instincts by which to live.” Her struggles toward feeling and defining a presence in her life larger than herself especially resonated with me.

Shapiro presents the book in a series of mini-chapters, which do leap around a bit, but which I think symbolize her sear More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 21, 2011

Florinda rated it:

There s something about entering parenthood that can prompt those who ve drifted away from the religion of their upbringing to consider a return to it. In my own story, the wish to make a religious framework part of our son s education led my first husband and me back to the Catholic Church around the time he started school.[return][return]The decision wasn t quite as cut-and-dred for Dani Shapiro. Raised in an observant Orthodox Jewish family, she d left behind most of those practices in y More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 07, 2011

Nancy rated it:

This was an intensely satisfying read for me. Dani Shapiro has a way of articulating the taboo questions I have inside my own head, shaking them out and writing them down. She then works through her questions (which are often my own) as she relates life-altering experiences from her own existence. She blends her Jewish faith with her yoga studies and her sharp intellect and explores the nooks and crannies of faith, God, fate, divinity, connectedness, tragedy and carpool.

I related More...

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Apr 02, 2011

The Sunday Book rated it:

Reading this book, I found myself following Dani and she tries to figure out where she stands in the world. Not only in terms of career and family, but in terms of her faith. Being brought up and surrounded by her Jewish family, she is struggling to find out where she fits in now that she is older and has stopped practicing her faith.

You couldn't get a more relatable book! No matter what faith the reader is, there is something in this book for them. I liked the way Dani mixed person More...

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Mar 05, 2011

Karen rated it:

Have you heard of the law of similars (you know, that 'like attracts like")? That may very well explain why I was drawn to this book. It grabbed me right away, what with the author’s talk about being a woman in her midforties, a mother, a wife, and a person who is struggling to find meaning in the practice of her religion, and to (like me!) make her yoga and meditation practice happen on a daily basis. But unlike me, after months of poring over the catalogue, circling courses she lusted ov More...

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Feb 28, 2011

CoffeeBook rated it:

She is an adult, married, with a young son. She is a writer, living in New York, with deadlines and assignments. Her place in life is already carved out and understood.

Right?

For Dani Shapiro, her memoir embraces the fact that she actually doesn't know, but that she is trying - trying so very, very hard - to find out. Most especially, faith becomes the crucial piece that perhaps will help make sense of it all, to calm her anxiety and the fear that something bad could happen at More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 04, 2010

Judith rated it:

This year, I am interested in reading books about how people find and/or lose their faith, which brought me to this book about a middle-aged woman's search for her own religious and/or spiritual journey. She had a nice style and a nice story to tell, which is why I kept reading it. But by the time I was finished, I felt like I had spent an afternoon talking to a passenger in the seat beside me on a trip across the country. Entertained but not enlightened. I think maybe I have read enough of More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 27, 2011

Sarah Joyce rated it:

I read Devotion in two days/two sittings. The structure of the book – chapters starting right where the last ended – made it difficult to find a place to stop reading and I loved it. Dani Shapiro’s narrative was so personal and spoke to me on such a deep level and that structure gave me permission to keep reading…just one more chapter. What Shapiro wrote about: Is this all there is to life? If so, why do I feel like something’s missing?, and the spiritual quest that she began, is something unive More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 31, 2010

Karyn rated it:

Dani Shapiro, on the cusp of Gen X and the baby boomer generation, is entering what Jung called the “afternoon of life,” a time to seek answers and meaning. A blonde New York author on the outside, she carries a melting pot of strong, sometimes contradictory influences within her. Her resulting unique personality is difficult to integrate leading her to constantly feel on the outside.

Her life is marked with the losses that all of us share and hers have hit unexpectedly, in unpred More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 02, 2011

Michelle added it

I've mentioned this before - and the more I experience the life of a book reviewer/blogger, the more I firmly believe this to be true - books have a way of coming across our path when they are most needed, when they will speak to us the most. Over the past two-plus years, as I have finally started paying attention, I have read many a novel or memoir that resonated with me specifically because they touched on something for which I too was searching. Dani Shapiro's Devotion is yet another example More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 22, 2010

Kasey rated it:

I loved, loved, loved this book. Which surprised me, because I wasn't particularly into the Dani Shapiro novel I tried to read. Maybe I didn't try hard enough. Because this book is beautifully written and very, very moving. It isn't really specifically about Buddhism, though it's one tradition Shapiro investigates in her effort to (for lack of better words) get more spiritual (she also explores yoga and Judaism, which is her family tradition). I'm making the book sound silly and lightweight More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 08, 2011

Zohar - ManOfLaBook.com rated it:

“Devotion” by Dani Shapiro is a memoir about the authors mid-life crisis and search for spirituality. The book provided a fascinating read into the mind of a woman that, it seemed to me, couldn’t find inner calm if it slapped her in the face.

Evaluating herself as mid-life approaches, author Dani Shapiro feels anxiety over which she has no control. Looking at monumental personal events in her past makes her realize where some of that unease comes from. Dani Shapiro does not consider h More...

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Jul 22, 2011

Joan rated it:

My first book by this author, it gripped and enlightened me, and prompted me to order more of her books. A well-written, thoughtful memoir that intricately explores many ambiguities, the book draws from private and particular experiences and circumstances, and doesn't lose its footing as it approaches meaning-of-life issues. It's how we live, explored from the perspective of one woman, and enlightened by her explorations into many traditions and practices.

When I finish a book that part More...

5 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 27, 2011

thewanderingjew rated it:

From the first page, I believed that Dani Shapiro was presenting an honest appraisal of her search for herself and the meaning of her life. As she pretty much bares her soul and her secrets, she seems to be exposing her fears and weaknesses in an effort to face them in the light of day and better deal with them. She worries about things that haven’t happened but devises all sorts of scenarios about what might happen and then spends her time trying to prevent them from happening or prepares for t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 16, 2011

Rachel rated it:

First of all, let me say that when I picked this book off the shelf at Barnes and Noble, I was taking a religion course at a seminary called "Building Abrahamic Partnerships" which not only made me question other religions which differed from my own, but also look internally at my own religion. This book came to me at the perfect time because of my queries about Judaism and how to live a Jewish life in a modern world. Shapiro does a great job of speaking to the reader and I definetely More...

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Jan 16, 2012

Kristen rated it:

This is one of those books I approach with equal measure of high hopes and trepidation. On the one hand, I am heartened to see a writer putting her spiritual quandaries and concerns out there, and wrestling with them honestly and forthrightly in prose. But on the other hand, I worry that this type of book also falls into what I think we are lately calling "first world problems," or, more to the point here, "upper-middle-class white woman problems." I mean, we should all be af More...

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May 29, 2011

Rex Robot Reviews rated it:

Reviewed by Mona at RexRobotReviews.com

Devotion: A Memoir by Dani Shapiro is a spiritually moving journey through one woman's life. I found this book to be an emotional exploration of faith and family. It is as if I were a shadow, following Ms. Shapiro through all of her trials and tribulations of finding herself and what her past means to her present and her future.

This book is truly an inspirational story. I cried and I laughed throughout this book, enjoying the writing More...

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Mar 03, 2011

Rhonda Rae rated it:

Life has a way of unraveling us if we let it yet inner strength helps us weave back in what is important to us as individuals. I was expecting to find greater insight within the pages of this memoir but what I found was encouragement to keep on keeping on.

Dani didn’t share any profound wisdom for me yet her path gave me light at the end of my own tunnel. I understood her hyper-vigilance and search for meaning in all the chaos coupled with the fear of losing something important alon More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 26, 2010

Beth rated it:

Shapiro qoutes Carl Jung on pg 182
“Thoroghly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life; worst still, we take this step with the false assumptions that our truths and ideals will serve us as before. But we cannot live the afternoons of life according to the programme of life’s morning – for what was great in the morning will be little in the evening, and what in the morning was true will in the evening have become a lie.”

Shapiro qoutes Carl Jung on pg 182

More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 10, 2011

Mandy rated it:

Wow, I really loved this book! I could relate to it in so many ways. I stumbled upon this book accidentally but wondered if maybe it was divine intervention or dare I say "fate" that brought us together. This memoir is about a Jewish-born woman who abandoned her faith but began questioning it again after her son was born. She has so many internal conflicts and notions of what prayer and enlightenment should mean. She cofesses her fears and weaknesses but later learns to make some More...

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Nov 06, 2010

Mike rated it:

I love her narrative voice and her outlook on life. Her prose sometimes sizzles poetically.
I love how well-read she is, and how she leavens her text with aptly-chosen echoes & resonances from other wise writers and fellow-seekers.

Shapiro's spiritual journey is an interesting, unique, authentic one.
I think she identifies as very much of a Jew-Bu(ddhist), as do I (although I'm not sure how to spell it!).

Due to the trials and tribulations she's endured, her sensibility More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 04, 2010

Barb rated it:

I may take a rest from this genre (middle age spiritual quest) for awhile, even though I liked this book very much. Much like "discovering" motherhood in my 20's and 30's, I'm coming head to head with the visceral knowledge of death as a reality, not just some abstract occurrence in the far off future. It's that time of life when the busyness of children and career start to fade; the importance of things seems inconsequential; the body starts its revolt and the essential "alonenes More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 27, 2011

Laura rated it:

Dani Shapiro tackles the big questions of how to live our lives, what is faith, and whether we can hunger for spirituality and have an independent mind all at the same time.
I couldn't put this book down and immediately put it into the hands of a very good friend who has suffered too much tragedy.
What I most appreciate about this book is that it is subtle and honest and true. In a world where there is so much black and white thinking, Dani Shapiro has written a book which wisely cel More...

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Mar 26, 2010

Fred rated it:

Normally not the sort of book I'd choose, my independent study kid wanted to read it. It's non-fiction, about a novelist's mid-life search for spiritual meaning. She looks into her own Orthodox Jewish roots, explores yoga and Buddhism, reflects on the disasters and near-disasters in her life, and concludes that we have to search for meaning, but we don't have to find the answers all in one place. (Her husband and son are Red Sox fans, but it never seems to occur to her that everything she is loo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 08, 2010

Erin rated it:

The library with its waitlist and 2 week checkout period has a way of dictating what I read when. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for this one when it finally came up in the queue but while I enjoyed it on some level - the author is interesting, it was quick to read, and the topic was her spiritual journey - I got tired of this about half way through. Same questions, same issues, same sources of comfort. At some point I realized that I would rather be spending time on my own journey than read More...

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Sep 28, 2011

Laura rated it:

Dani Shapiro did an amazing job of capturing the middle-aged angst of a woman trying to figure out who she is (and that's something I can really identify with).

For her, the search is manifested in looking for a religious and spiritual path. She isn't comfortable with her father's Orthodox Jewish history, but neither does she wish to leave Judaism entirely. She also looks into other traditions, finding mentors and gurus to guide her.

Ultimately, her journey was a solo More...

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Nov 06, 2010

Megan rated it:

i was curious to read a memoir about someone's search for spirituality since i'm doing that search, too. but ultimately, any time i read this kind of memoir, i'm trying to determine if i can trust the author and the conclusions she comes to as i go along. i was reassured that shapiro hates platitudes like "god doesn't give us more than we can handle" and "everything happens for a reason," but in the end i wasn't convinced by her conclusion that there is some sort of animating More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Sep 07, 2010

pri rated it:

i really enjoyed this memoir (and i did not like eat, pray, love - which i think it is compared to a bit). i found her exploration of ritual, prayer, meditation as both ancestral and as comforting moving. her memories of her father and his daily prayer ritual, her own experiences meditating, meetings at AA, trying to find the right
synagogue to join, a certain set of lullabies sung to her son when he was ill. it wasn't quite said - but the prayers, the rituals, the meditations brought the More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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