Kathleen Norris Books

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, this work captivates readers with its compelling narrative and rich character development. It explores profound themes that resonate deeply, engaging with the complexities of human experience and emotion. The story is set against a backdrop that enhances the plot, offering insights into the characters' lives and the challenges they face. This book promises a thought-provoking journey that leaves a lasting impression on its audience.

Why would a married woman with a Protestant background and more doubt than faith be drawn to monasticism and a community of celibate men? This is the question Kathleen Norris explores as she unexpectedly spends time at a Benedictine monastery. Upon leaving, she feels transformed, and the daily events of her life on the Great Plains—from morning walks to bedtime—gain new significance. In the monastery, time slows down, offering fresh perspectives on community, family, and small-town life. Understanding the Benedictine practice of celibacy enriches her own marriage, while the communal reading of psalms brings the ancient oral tradition of poetry to life. Even mundane tasks like laundry take on new meaning through the lens of Benedictine ritual. Norris guides us through a liturgical year, sharing her experiences both inside and outside the monastery. From her unique perspective as both insider and outsider, she illustrates how immersion in the cloistered world—its liturgy, rituals, and sense of community—can add depth to everyday events and enhance our secular lives, regardless of our faith.

In this symphonically powerful novel, Willa Cather created one of the most winning heroines in American fiction, a woman whose robust high spirits and calm, undemonstrative strength are emblematic of the virtues Cather most admired in her country. Antonia Shimerda is the daughter of Bohemian immigrants struggling with the oceanic loneliness of life on the Nebraska prairie. Through the eyes of Jim Burden, her tutor and disappointed admirer, we follow Antonia from farm to town and through hardships both natural and human, surviving everything from poverty to a failed romance--and not only surviving, but triumphing. In the end, Antonia is exactly what Burden says she is: a woman who "had that something which fires the imagination, [a woman who] could stop . . . one's breath for a moment by a look or a gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things."

"... Classic about life on the Great Plains and its influence on the human spirit"--From publisher description.

This year’s Best American Essays is edited by the best-selling, award-winning writer Kathleen Norris, whose books include Dakota andThe Virgin of Bennington. “The writers in this volume invite us into hidden places: a surgical pathologist’s laboratory, the boxing gym where a college professor and his student learn unexpected lessons about discipline, pain, and growing to adulthood. There are many discoveries to be made here, and I gladly invite the reader to an uncommonly rich and rewarding book.” — Kathleen Norris

Why would a married woman with a thoroughly Protestant background and often more doubt than faith be drawn to the ancient practice of monasticism, to a community of celibate men whose days are centered around a rigid schedule of prayer, work, and scripture? This is the question that Kathleen Norris herself asks as, somewhat to her own surprise, she found herself on two extended residencies at a Benedictine monastery. Yet upon leaving the monastery, she began to feel herself transformed, and the daily events of her life on the Great Plains - from her morning walk to her going to sleep at night - gradually took on new meaning.