Critical Praise

"This is a remarkable piece of writing.... If read with humility and attention, Kathleen Norris's book becomes lectio divina, or holy reading. "

—The Boston Globe

"She writes about religion with the imagination of a poet... The story of her faith is attractively incongruous, and more than a little receptive to rebellion... Some bridling is worth it to a reader when the writer is as original as Norris, a Midwestern, late-20th-century mystic. "

—— Molly

McQuade, Chicago Tribune "Ms. Norris is subtle and shrewd... In The Cloister Walk, persisting in her wonderfully idiosyncratic ways, she gives us the result of an 'immersion into a liturgical world'... Most of all, naturally, these pages offer the voice of Kathleen Norris, a person of modern sensibility who dares leap across time and space to make the interests and concerns of any number of reflective thinkers her own... She is one of history's writing pilgrims but also a contemporary American one, boldly willing to forsake any number of cultural fads, trends and preoccupations in favor of this 'walk,' this searching expedition within herself... "

—— Robert

Coles, The New York Times Book Review "With her lucid, luminous prose, hard-headed logic, and far-reaching metaphors, Norris has brought us the cloister at its most alive. "

—San Francisco Chronicle