Simple Gifts: Lessons in Living from a Shaker Village
by June Sprigg
List Price:
Our Price: $5.92
You Save: $9.08 (61%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: June SpriggEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-06-07
ISBN: 0375704329
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Simple Gifts: Lessons in Living from a Shaker Village
Book Review: Caught me by surprise
Summary: 5 Stars
I was looking through the library for a book on the Shaker way, specifically, what it might be like to be a Shaker, what goes on in their minds, and why they live(d) the way they did. This book is a truly engaging read from cover to cover -- the warm, conversational tone of the narrative kept me reading, and the insights into the Shaker world are priceless. Rather than taking a dry, anthropological view of the vanishing sect, or waxing new age, the author simply tells her own story beautifully, evoking the feeling of what it would be like to visit that time and place. I know very little about Shaker ways, which is why I picked up this book, and I'm very glad I did. From the humorous visits with the neighboring miniature makers to the serene white-washed (and even pink!) walls of the buildings to the gentle smiles of the Sisters, this memoir was charming and a great read. I couldn't put it down.
Summary of Simple Gifts: Lessons in Living from a Shaker Village
In Simple Gifts, June Sprigg tells the story of one of America's last Shaker communities--Canterbury Shaker Village, in Canterbury, New Hampshire--during its twilight years, and of its seven remarkable "survivor" women, who were among the last representatives of our longest-lived and best-known communal utopian society. As a college student Sprigg spent a summer among them, and here she gracefully interweaves the narrative of their lives with the broader history of Shakers in America as she shows us how her experiences there affected her own life and opened the door to her creativity.Gleaning information from old records and journals that she pored over that summer and later, Sprigg brings to life the generations of Canterbury Shakers from the eighteenth century to the present--their customs, their architecture, their spirituality. She also explores the social and cultural forces and the internal imperatives and tensions that caused membership to decrease, all of which, by 1972, brought the community to crisis.
Chronicling the daily life of the village as she found it, Sprigg uncovers the affirming energies of the Shakers--the prominence of mutual love and respect, the devoted tradition of mothering surrogate children, and, above all, the surviving women's spirited eccentricities. She reveals the Shakers as individuals--their personal histories, their wildly different beginnings, what they gave up to join the Shaker community, and, more important, what they gained.
Through her lively text and drawings and her intimate connection with the community, Sprigg brings us close to its people with a book that both enlightens and inspires.
From the Hardcover edition.
"This is a simple story that means the world to me," June Sprigg writes by way of preface to Simple Gifts, her memoir of a summer spent with the last seven residents of a New Hampshire Shaker community. It's a fitting motto for the serene, unadorned lives of these women--"members of an endangered species," as one of the elderly sisters wryly says--and of the joy they brought a girl who at 19 was "half in and half out of the egg." Although the Shakers took vows of celibacy, their religious tradition always included caring for children--especially those society refused to provide for--and after so many years, the sisters were delighted to have a girl to dote on once again. For her own part, Sprigg found much-needed guidance as she made her own transition into womanhood: "What might have seemed like the unlikeliest of friendships--me at nineteen, a miniskirted college sophomore, and six Shaker sisters in their seventies, eighties, and nineties, soft and wrinkled as old plums--made sense, perhaps to our mutual surprise." As Sprigg spends the summer guiding tours, working alongside the sisters, and poring over old journals, a portrait emerges of a community that remains vital even during its twilight years. Perhaps more importantly, Sprigg finds a spiritual lineage that stretches from one generation to the next--even, she imagines, coming to rest in a non-Shaker like herself. More than just a profile of a historical curiosity, this memoir tells the stories of seven remarkable but very different women, and in the process offers a invaluable testimony to the life of the spirit put into joyous practice.
Fiction Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Fiction Books
Reluctant Messiahby Salamon Eskinazi
Jason Aronson, Inc.; Published: 2001-07-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $39.95
Joshua, the Man They Called Jesusby Ian, MBE Jones, Ian Jones
Lothian Books; Published: 2000; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
The Christmas Angel (Cape Light, Book 6)by Thomas Kinkade, Katherine Spencer
Jove; Published: 2007-09-25; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.91
Price in other shops:
In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do?by Charles M. Sheldon
Dover Publications; Published: 2010-12-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.70
Price in other shops:
On Hummingbird Wings: A Novelby Lauraine Snelling
FaithWords; Published: 2011-04-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.99
Price in other shops:
Ghostwriter: A Novelby Travis Thrasher
FaithWords; Published: 2009-05-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.55
Price in other shops:
Cyril of Alexandria (The Early Church Fathers)by Norman Russell
Routledge; Published: 2000-06-08; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $112.77
Price in other shops:
![When the Game Is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box [Paperback] by Ortberg, John Image](/images/When-the-Game-Is-Over-It-All-Goes-Back-in-the-Box-Paperback-by-Ortberg-John-0310253195-X.jpg){kind=small}
When the Game Is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box [Paperback] by Ortberg, Johnby John Ortberg
Zondervan; Published: 2007; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.44
Then Comes Marriageby Angela Elwell Hunt, Bill Myers
Zondervan Publishing Company; Published: 2001-02-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
The Language of Silence: The Changing Face of Monastic Solitude (Traditions of Christian Spirit)by Peter Damian Belisle
Darton Longman and Todd; Published: 2003-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.04
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
The Shakers: Two Centuries of Spiritual Reflection (Classics of Western Spirituality)Paulist Press; Published: 1983-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.97
Price in other shops:
One Shaker Life: Isaac Newton Youngs, 1793-1865by Glendyne R. Wergland
Univ of Massachusetts Pr; Published: 2006-02-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $23.95
Price in other shops:
Simple Gifts: Shaker Chants and SpiritualsRelease date: 1995-09-05; Music CD
Best price: $12.69
Price in other shops:
The Earth Shall Blossom: Shaker Herbs and Gardeningby Galen Beale, Mary Rose Boswell
Countryman Press; Published: 2003-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.29
Price in other shops:
The People Called Shakersby Edward D. Andrews
Dover Publications; Published: 2011-11-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.29
Price in other shops:
Chosen Faith, Chosen Land: The Untold Story of America's 21st Century Shakersby Jeannine Lauber
Down East Books; Published: 2009-12-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.87
Price in other shops:
Shaker: Life, Work and Artby June Sprigg, David Larkin
Harry N. Abrams; Published: 2001-03-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $18.99
Price in other shops:
Stillness and Light: The Silent Eloquence of Shaker Architectureby Henry Plummer
Indiana University Press; Published: 2009-08-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $20.00
Price in other shops:
The Shaker Experience in America: A History of the United Society of Believersby Professor Stephen J. Stein
Yale University Press; Published: 1994-02-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.90
Price in other shops:
Ken Burns' America: The ShakersParamount; Release date: 2004-09-28; DVD
Best price: $10.16
Price in other shops: