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    Dakota: A Spiritual Geography
    Dakota: A Spiritual Geography
    Dakota: A Spiritual Geography
    Audiobook7 hours

    Dakota: A Spiritual Geography

    Written by Kathleen Norris

    Narrated by Pam Ward

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    "A deeply spiritual, deeply moving book" about life on the Great Plains, by the New York Times bestselling author of The Cloister Walk (The New York Times Book Review).

    "With humor and lyrical grace," Kathleen Norris meditates on a place in the American landscape that is at once desolate and sublime, harsh and forgiving, steeped in history and myth (San Francisco Chronicle). A combination of reporting and reflection, Dakota reminds us that wherever we go, we chart our own spiritual geography.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMay 28, 2019
    ISBN9781400127474

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    Reviews for Dakota

    4/5

    255 ratings10 reviews

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    • 1/5
      This book doesn't have any real sense of purpose. It's just a rambling mish mash of thoughts and observations. Disappointing.
    • 2/5
      I read about 2/3 of the book. I liked it in the beginning. After a while I began to feel I was reading the same thing over and over. I think my problem was that it wasn't what I expected it to be. It seems to be less a story and more a series of essays or the musings of the author on spirituality found in the difficulties of life in Western Dakotas and in a monastery. I lost interest about 50 pages into it, but kept reading to around page 250. I tried to finish because this book was one I was involved in selecting for our book club. I gave up trying.

    • 3/5
      Really nice work about the great plains area, loneliness, meditation, etc. Worthwhile.
    • 4/5
      A lovely meditation on life on the plains, and on the prairie's special way of awakening and activating faith (I had the same experience fwiw.) I can't say i understand why Norris chose to stay in Lemmon, she seems more ill-suited to the region than I was, and I was in the "big city" of Fargo -- I made it two years. Still she tells a tale, provides context and introduces a way of approaching life that is compelling, and led me to rethink my approach to some things. A worthwhile read for those if us who prefer guided reflection to self-help.
    • 3/5
      I found the poetry in this collection much more powerful than the essays. While Kathleen Norris is articulate, especially about her faith and conceptions of Christianity, I found most essays spun off into rabbit trails, side stories and were not cohesive. There was also a fair amount of repetition, especially about the monastic lifestyle, Benedictine tradition and an endless supply of anecdotes about her choice to move from New York to Dakota. Norris captures the spirit of the Plains when she lets herself express the natural world in her poetry, I wish there would have been a bit more of these and a bit less reflection and reportage.
    • 3/5
      I had been saving this book for several years because I had heard it was fantastic. I read about half the book and was very bored. Put it down. Came back a month or so later to finish. Some chapters were OK. "Is it You Again" and "Monks at Play" were an interesting exploration of monasteries.I felt her constant comparisons of the communities of the Dakotas with monastic communities was a bit strained at times and it was irritating to have her continually mix the two. She had too many ideas she wanted to develop here:coming to terms with her families past, exploring her changing spirituality and interest in monasteries, expounding on small town society.
    • 5/5
      i read another book by kathleen norris which was too religious for me but this was wonderful.
    • 1/5
      I'm not sure why I disliked this book. It certainly seems innocuous enough. It might be that I am not a reflective person in the same sense as the author. I don't care much for poetry, either.
    • 4/5
      A great melding of biography, physical landscape, spirituality and place. Along with F. Buechner she is my favorite author on things spiritual.
    • 5/5
      Norris, a New York poet, was called back to the family farm in South Dakota after the death of her grandmother. This is her account of both the geographic journey home, and the spiritual journey that accompanied it.