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Devotion: A Memoir

3.63 of 5 stars 3.63 · rating details · 783 ratings · 174 reviews

In her midforties and settled into the responsibilities and routines of adulthood, Dani Shapiro found herself with more questions than answers. Was this all life was—a hodgepodge of errands, dinner dates, e-mails, meetings, to-do lists? What did it all mean?

Having grown up in a deeply religious and traditional family, Shapiro had no personal sense of faith, despite repeate...more

ebook, 272 pages

Published January 26th 2010 by HarperCollins e-books

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Feb 01, 2010 Caroline M. rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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

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Jan 25, 2010 Marty rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, harpercollins, memoir

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 - absolutely nothing I could put...more

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Oct 02, 2011 Kristen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir

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 search for lessons...more

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Mar 01, 2012 Florinda rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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.

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 young adulthood, and...more 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.

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 young adulthood, and the sudden loss of her father after a car accident when she was twenty-three was a further break with them...but a space grew where those traditions had been, and a yoga practice that was more physically than spiritually effective didn'�t fill it. As other losses followed - her mother, the pre-9/11 New York City she�d made her home - and parenthood was threatened to be cut short by the rare seizure disorder that overtook her infant son, Shapiro became increasingly aware that she lacked a sense of faith in God, and increasingly focused on the questions that raised for her. Among those questions: was there a place for the Judaism she was raised with in her life, and that of her family, now?

Devotion explores Shapiro�'s learning to live with, and within, the questions - exploring Torah study and mediation, finding a synagogue for her family in the Connecticut countryside far from the urban Jewish community in New York, attending yoga classes and Buddhist retreats. She comes to understand that her personal history will always make her �"complicated with Judaism;�" it will always be part of who she is, and will always color her worldview. This is a concept that makes sense to me, and appeals as a way of characterizing the continuing Catholic influence on my own perspective.

This isn�'t a conventional faith memoir. It has a unifying theme, but it really doesn'�t have a strong narrative outline or linear structure, and there'�s no particular epiphany that provides a climax. The writing shifts back and forth across various timeframes and experiences over more than 80 brief chapters, sometimes reflective, sometimes philosophical, sometimes reporting and sometimes speculating...but, to me, never sounding anything other than authentic and honest. I related to Shapiro�'s questioning and did get a sense that she was finding a way to live comfortably with it; seeing that happen for someone else helps me feel a bit more comfortable living with my own.(less)

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Apr 07, 2011 Nancy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 very well wit...more

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Apr 02, 2011 The Sunday Book Review rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 personal stories -...more

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Mar 05, 2011 Karen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir

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 over whi...more

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Feb 28, 2011 CoffeeBook Chick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone searching for their purpose in life

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 any moment. Faith,...more 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 any moment. Faith, though, has almost disappeared in her adult life, which is the most troubling. The uneasy feeling of being an outsider in the very religion you were raised in is undeniably unsettling. She wonders how it is possible that she doesn't remember Jewish hymns and prayers that she grew up hearing and reciting herself - how can this be so? The doubt and fear become the wall, separating her from some semblance of personal foundation.

This beautifully written memoir is a quiet undertaking, an introspective study into understanding meaning and religion, if only to feel a connection to her deeply religious father or to repair the relationship with her mother - maybe, actually, even to God. And I could not put it down.

Weaving elements of different faiths, yoga, Kripalu, her search is a lyrical unfolding of personal stories, snippets of contemplation, short pages of confusion, heartbreak, and understanding. Dani Shapiro's path evoked a sense of my own questions of faith - where was I to fit myself in the great landscape of life? Reading it in a few hours was a simple journey for a similar door to open a bit more, and understand personal faith.

I know that this will fit perfectly on my bookshelf, a comforting reference point. One person's life can't possibly provide all of the answers another hopes for, but it can certainly offer a bit of comfort to know that you're not the only one moving about and trying to make sense of it all. This is my first time reading Dani Shapiro's work and I kick myself for not having read her other books sooner.

Although I'm sure this will be recommended mostly for women, I would recommend this to anyone who has pursued their own questions of life and faith, and their place in all of it. Book clubs - this is definitely one to pick! I ent(less)

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May 04, 2010 Judith rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 thos...more

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Mar 27, 2011 Sarah Joyce Bryant rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 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 universal to many of us these days as we watch the ground we once thought was impenetrable disintegrating before our eyes. Shapiro has what seems a charmed life, but at the root of her quest are a lot of loss, deep loneliness, and an inability to relinquish control of the uncontrollable. For those who have experienced great loss and tragedy or have come through a “near miss” it is very difficult to trust that everything will be okay. Instead, they spend most of their time thinking about what bad thing might happen next and how they can avoid it. Shapiro addresses how “…we’re all complicated by the way we were raised” as she tries to come to terms with her strict religious upbringing and the guilt she feels for seeking other ways to find God and meaning in her life other than just the Judaism in which she was raised.

I loved the interweaving of samskara (our knots of energy that each tells a story) throughout Shapiro’s narrative. She says, “Release a samskara and you release that story. Release your stories, and suddenly there is more room to breathe, to feel, to experience the world” which is what she is doing by writing this book. We are all a compilation of these stories. Some we share. Some we cannot bare to acknowledge. I equally loved Sylvia Boorstein’s metta meditation chants (the condensed version). I believe it is a wonderful way to begin a meditation routine and is something so simple that we can bring it with us wherever we go. There is also a practice Shapiro discovers at a California yoga studio that she incorporates into the end of her yoga routine that is again so simple, yet extremely powerful.

There are so many stunning moments that pierced right through me, so many questions that I have asked myself sitting right there on the page. Shapiro writes in such an accessible way you feel like you are taking the journey with her, discovering what she is discovering right there with her, and equally feeling her frustration at the lack of solid answers to the existential questions that haunt us. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is unsettled and is searching for that elusive something that will help them feel more grounded. Keeping an open mind and reading about others’ experiences are the best ways to move towards that more peaceful state of being even if we find that there are no answers and we must just “live inside the questions.”Devotion: A Memoir Dani Shapiro (less)

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Jan 31, 2010 Karyn Hall rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 unpredictable ways, s...more

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May 02, 2011 Michelle added it · review of another edition

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 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 of this phenomenon.

Ms. Shapiro is facing what most of us without deep faith end up questioning - is this all there is to life? How many of us have sat in an endless meeting and wondered the same thing? How many of us have actually done something about it, whether it is searching out a like-minded group, starting a daily meditation practice, taking up yoga, attending a church group, or some other search for something larger than the mundane? When facing the rest of her life, at a personal crossroads and searching for peace of mind and a greater purpose, Ms Shapiro actively sought out these practices and shares her experiences with readers. Deeply personal, incredibly poignant, her soul-searching takes her on a roller coaster of a journey, through which the reader can glean his or her own key points to adapt to his or her own life.

One's search for greater meaning is personal, as is Ms. Shapiro's. Yet, there is much a reader can learn from Ms. Shapiro's journey. Having faith, of any sort, means standing on the edge of a precipice and not fretting about the fall, or the potential to fall. It means living in the moment. This, to me, is the greatest gift and most meaningful lesson to be learned in this day and age of multi-tasking and constant connection to the world.
"One afternoon at Garrison, Sharon Salzberg spoke about a Buddhist teach in India, a widowed woman with many, many children who had no time to sit on a cushion, meditating. How had she done it then? Sharon had once asked her. How had she achieved her remarkable ability to live in the present?
The answer was simply this: she stirred the rice mindfully." (pg. 211)
To focus only on the task at hand means to live in the moment, to learn to put aside the fears and concerns, the demands and constant pulls we feel in our lives. It allows us to be still and be calm, whether we are driving, writing, sitting in meetings, running errands or stirring the rice. Something so simple has the ability to change so much.

Devotion is not for everyone, although I do feel there is much that everyone could learn from Ms. Shapiro's journey. She goes into detail about her Jewish heritage, her religious upbringing and the conflicts that resulted as she grew older, rebelled, and started her own family. She spends a lot of time discussing her yoga and meditation. In addition, her writing style is very journalistic. Each chapter is relatively short and discusses whatever happened to be on her mind at the time of writing. This means that the story of her son's illness is explained slowly throughout the story, popping up on one page and not mentioned again for another 20 or 30 pages. This modified stream-of-consciousness adds an air of poignancy and intimacy to the entire memoir, as the reader catches more than a glimpse of Ms. Shapiro's inner yearnings and struggles. The result is a beautiful reminder that wanting more is okay, but we also need to be willing to put forth the effort to finding more to life. For those who have ever questioned, Devotion is a great start to one's own search for more.

Thank you to Erica Barmash from Harper Collins for my review copy!(less)

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Sep 22, 2010 Kasey rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: buddhism, spirituality, memoir

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, whi...more

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Mar 08, 2011 Zohar - ManOfLaBook.com rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

“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 herself relig...more

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Jul 22, 2011 Joan Winnek rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 particularly m...more

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Feb 27, 2011 thewanderingjew rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 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 their eventuality. She is wasting a lot of time and effort on imaginary circumstances. It can be exhausting and draining. She is plagued with insecurity. Having suffered through a near tragedy and some loss in her life, she is more susceptible to fears about them recurring; however, I believe that having escaped and/or dealt with the suffering, one usually becomes more sensitive to, and appreciates far more, the meaning of life and its value. Life is seen through the lens of experience and there is an essential feeling of gratitude for the second chance that has been given. There is a feeling that there might be a greater power out there that is controlling events, someone else pulling the strings of the human puppets.
Through various events in her life, she explains the anxiety she experiences, just from living everyday. She connects with the reader and as I began to think about my own life, I remembered how I reacted in similar circumstances. It was as if I was seeing parts of my life through the mirror of her eyes. The writing style is light but the message is deep, not trivial.
At the end of the book, Dani Shapiro is still a somewhat quasi atheist, questioning her beliefs and viewing the world through the teachings of her religious background. She has taken a spiritual journey and, although not actually practicing her Judaism devoutly, she is instead following traditions and rituals. She explores her past, hoping for self discovery, looking inward, mostly through yoga meditation. She constantly engages in soul searching in an attempt to live in the moment and find inner peace.
There are 102 flashbacks which reveal her attempts to analyze and work through her worries; she explores her relationship with her mother, her experiences regarding 9/11, her attendance at AA meetings, her son’s illness, her love for her father, and several other momentous occasions in her life.
Although at first, I wasn’t sure I would like this book as much as I did, I came to really appreciate its message. It made me stop and think about moments in my life, memories that I have not come to terms with, and helped me to view them in another light, more openly and with less sorrow and anger. Her message, throughout the book, is "live safe, live happy, live strong, live with ease". Paraphrasing from a quote in her book, “don’t live so far into the future that you lose the present”. Enjoy the moment.

(less)

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Jan 29, 2013 Antonio Farias rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I sort of fell into this book after reading a short blog piece of hers that someone recommended on FB - was it chance, a sign, Providence speaking? Does it really matter? Growing up in a very religious Christian household, having turned away from organized religion and dealing with my own internal questions about my father, fatherhood, a child that ends up with one of those lotto odds sickness, guilt/rage about retribution from an mercurial God, my own obsessions with finding peace in the presen...more

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Aug 16, 2011 Rachel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 felt as if...more

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Jan 16, 2012 Kristen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 afflicted with a happy...more

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Jan 11, 2013 Andrea Homier rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Dani Shapiro's honesty in writing of the search for meaning in her life and reconciliation with her Orthodox Jewish upbringing was what struck me the most about her reflections. She is not afraid to admit that she is frightened, depressed, and often times cannot find the meaning, and yet, this memoir is not hopeless. Meaning seeps in through the cracks -- at times. The last paragraph gives a beautiful glimmer:

This too, this too, this too, Jack Kornfield said. Life keeps coming at us. Fleeing it

...more

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May 29, 2011 Julia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 as well as being allowe...more

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Jan 16, 2013 Bianca Pistachio rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: loved

I loved this. I loved everything about it. As a woman straddling two cultures myself I could entirely relate to the idea of figuring out how to conduct our own lives with our own children in a way that feels true.

(Tangent: I had no idea the writer's life was so solitary... and that it was OK to be so alone - my mother always told be to stay busy, involved, and surrounded by people - it's so hard to shake a loving mother's well-meaning advice... :) I find days alone writing at home drive me mad....more

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Mar 03, 2011 Rhonda Rae Baker rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: healing, memoir, spiritual, own

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 along the way. But...more

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Feb 26, 2010 Beth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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

May I be safe
May I be happy
M...more

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Mar 10, 2011 Mandy Fernandez rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 kind of "peace"...more

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Nov 06, 2010 Mike rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american-studies, autobiography, matters-of-faith, on-the-shadow-side

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 is often dark.
But she has...more

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Mar 04, 2010 Barb rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 "aloneness" of life reas...more

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Apr 27, 2011 Laura Harrington rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: spirituality

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 celebrates the a...more

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Mar 26, 2010 Fred Daly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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

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Mar 08, 2010 Erin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 reading...more

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About Dani Shapiro

Dani Shapiro is the author of five novels and the best-selling memoir Slow Motion. She has also written for magazines such as The New Yorker and Elle.

She lives with her husband and young son in Litchfield County, Connecticut.

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Quotes from Devotion: A Memoir

“This sadness wasn't a huge part of me--I wasn't remotely depressed--but still, it was like a stone I carried in my pocket. I always knew it was there. [p. 179]” — 8 people liked it

“It wasn't getting easier because it isn't supposed to get easier. Midlife was a bitch, and my educated guess was that the climb only got steeper from here. Carl Jung put it perfectly: "Thoroughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life," he wrote. "Worse still, we take this step with the false assumption that our truths and ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life's morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will by evening have become a lie."
... I was writing a new program for the afternoon of life. The scales tipped away from suffering and toward openheartedness and love. [p. 182]” — 6 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7592302-devotion?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1276505833l/7592302.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7592302-devotion?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Devotion: A Memoir by Dani Shapiro[/url]

Devotion: A Memoir

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