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And Then There Were Nuns: Adventures in a Cloistered Life Paperback – September 3, 2013

by Jane Christmas (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 281 ratings
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With humor and opinions aplenty, a woman embarks on an unconventional quest to see if she is meant to be a nun.

Just as Jane Christmas decides to enter a convent in mid-life to find out whether she is “nun material”, her long-term partner Colin, suddenly springs a marriage proposal on her. Determined not to let her monastic dreams be sidelined, Christmas puts her engagement on hold and embarks on an extraordinary year long adventure to four convents—one in Canada and three in the UK. In these communities of cloistered nuns and monks, she shares—and at times chafes and rails against—the silent, simple existence she has sought all of her life. Christmas takes this spiritual quest seriously, but her story is full of the candid insights, humorous social faux pas, profane outbursts, and epiphanies that make her books so relatable and popular. And Then There Were Nuns offers a seldom-seen look inside modern cloistered life, and it is sure to ruffle more than a few starched collars among the ecclesiastical set.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    304 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Greystone Books
  4. Publication date
    September 3, 2013
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 1 x 8.4 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1553657993
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1553657996
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* How awkward. Fiftyish Christmas’ long-term, long-distance boyfriend proposes just when she’s decided she wants to become a nun. But does she really? Christmas takes readers along on a thought-provoking (and often amusing) journey to four—count ’em, four—cloistered communities in Great Britain, as she tries to make her life-changing decision over the course of many months. Along the way, she meets monks, nuns (both Catholic and Anglican), a demon or two, and possibly Jesus. Although she writes with a light touch, Christmas girds the narrative with solid questions. What does the religious life really entail? Why are religious communities almost forgotten, even by those of their faith? How do you choose between paths that are equally joyous and difficult, albeit in thoroughly dissimilar ways? As Jane (and it’s hard to think of her as anything but Jane) and the audience come to learn, a traumatic event in her life must be resurrected and addressed while her future is being decided. This is the best kind of memoir, revealing, refreshing, and reflective enough to make readers turn many of the questions on themselves. A delightful trip down the road less traveled. --Ilene Cooper

Review

"A thought provoking(and often amusing) journey ...This is the best kind of memoir, revealing,refreshing, and reflective enough to make readers turn many of the questions on themselves. A delightfultrip down the road less traveled." —BookList Starred Review

“A lovely, heartfelt tale. Get thee to a bookstore and buy it.”—AJ Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically

Praise for What the Psychic Told the Pilgrim:
"[Jane Christmas'] style is equal parts Nora Ephron and Bill Bryson" — Quill and Quire

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Greystone Books (September 3, 2013)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1553657993
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1553657996
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 8.4 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 281 ratings

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Jane Christmas

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Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
281 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

KKC
5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting!
Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2024
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Having attended both a Catholic grade school and Catholic high school, I’ve known many nuns. Even though the nuns I knew were not cloistered, this book gave me a glimpse into the life of those who have chosen religious life. I really enjoyed it!
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Teejay
4.0 out of 5 stars A Better Nun's Story
Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2014
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Better than most books in this genre, mostly because the author is not a naive simp but a modern, mature women who can look at religious life and its trappings with a clear, objective and sometimes even cynical eye. Her flexibility in relation to Roman Catholic vs Episcopal orders is also unique and very modern; she is more interested in inner peace and personal relations with God than in specific theology. Jane Christmas (great name) is sharp, imaginative and very inquisitive, and willing to put herself in peculiar circumstances to discern her vocation. No stern novice mistress or prioress will break her spirit, and the end of her story is refreshing and satisfying.
24 people found this helpful
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CMS
5.0 out of 5 stars Best Surprise Read
Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2021
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Unexpected wisdom and insights by this very articulate and prolific author. Journey undertaken by Ms. Christmas was unapologetic, forthright, funny, honest and just beautifully written. Never have have I bookmarked so many pages for reference in a book. I loved her style and how she wove together several interrelated aspects of her journey and life. I loved her use of humor to make a point, but making it (and her perspective as an imperfect female) real with just the right touch of sensibility. Even if one takes the religious aspect away, it a journey of seeking love and acceptance of oneself in our male dominated civilization. It’s just a great and wonderful read. You won’t be disappointed.
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Carina
3.0 out of 5 stars It was this passage and a few others like it that made me understand why she set out ...
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2015
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"Instead of fighting back, which is what I should have done with every ounce of my being, I cultivated a posture of confidence and humor to cover up my weak spots and to convince myself that I was a-ok. It takes work to maintain that strong, impermeable exterior. That armor of invincibility that I had forged so skillfully as self-protection had kept at bay those who might have helped me. At the time, I didn't want anyone's help: I was afraid they would think less of me.
Ah, that old, deadly sin Pride. It had slithered under my skin, snaked its way into my heart and made a bed there. It was feeding off my life force and suffocating my relationships. The denial and the pain was infecting everything in my life."

It took Jane Christmas thirty yeas to come to this realization, a realization that changed everything for her. It was this passage and a few others like it that made me understand why she set out on this journey to become a nun, and why she decided that the monastery was not for her.
5 people found this helpful
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Kristi Myers
5.0 out of 5 stars A perfect memoir! A real pleasure to read!
Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2015
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This was such a nice memoir to read! I got pulled in at the first page and just loved reading it to the very end. Jane Christmas is very good at inviting the reader into her world and making you care about her experiences. Her obvious love for the Sisters she met and her determination to discover her vocation made me root for her throughout. She has a way of introducing mystical experiences (for example, her encounter with a demon during a visit to a Catholic convent) without sounding ridiculous. I believed her story and I rejoiced with her at the end. I loved following Jane's internal struggles and appreciated the beauty and joy of the wonderful Sisters who guided her on her journey. I won't give any the ending, but I will say that the journey was worth the read, regardless of where she landed. I loved this book!
7 people found this helpful
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George MacFarlane
4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable and well written
Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2014
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I enjoyed the way the author was searching for her spiritual future. It was interesting how it blended with her physical future. She took time to describe all that she was experiencing along the journey. Well written and it gave you a feeling you were going through the events with her. Well done!!
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Robyn
5.0 out of 5 stars my favorite man book I read, and I read a lot
Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2023
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She was funny candid. I learned so much from reading the book I’m going to look and see if she’s written another one. Best of luck to her and her husband.
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Elizabeth F.
5.0 out of 5 stars Unique and Interesting
Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2023
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This was a good read. I thought it was a very well written story about a quest of/for faith. Highly recommend.
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Top reviews from other countries

Angela Griffin
5.0 out of 5 stars The Writings of Jane Christmas
Reviewed in Canada on June 3, 2014
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And Then There Were Nuns by Jane Christmas

This is the second book I have read by Canadian author Jane Christmas, a follow-up to "What the Psychic Told the Pilgrim: A Mid-Life Misadventure on Spain’s Camino de Santiago de Compostela". Another travel memoir, "And Then There Were Nuns", continues with Jane’s spiritual quest at age fifty-seven. Having always felt the tugging at her heart of a calling to religious life she explores the possibility at the same time as her English fiancé, Colin, proposes marriage to her. Leaving her adult children and her patient fiancé, Christmas sets off to experience life in various monasteries first in Canada and then in England, also vacillating between Anglican and Catholic orders since she was raised by a Catholic mother and an Anglican father.

The delightful humor of Christmas resounds throughout this book as it did in the first. She has matured another seven years since she wrote "What the Psychic Told the Pilgrim: A Mid-Life Misadventure on Spain’s Camino de Santiago de Compostela", but Christmas makes herself more vulnerable to her reader in this book. She exposes a soft underbelly that was more carefully protected in the first. In fact, it was not even eluded to in the first book.

In this memoir, she writes of a rape that occurred to her during the 1980s while she worked as a PR executive with a recording company. Of course, it is this event that proved to be the catalyst behind her thirst for God, but it was not mentioned in "What the Psychic Told the Pilgrim: A Mid-Life Misadventure on Spain’s Camino de Santiago de Compostela". In this book she writes of it with an open dread. “Up sprang an intense and frightening episode from my past. I thought I had done an admirable job of suppressing the memory all these years, but now it blew open with force of a geyser” (70). Christmas mentions the trauma early on in the book making way for the rest of the book to be about seeking a healing from that terrible trauma. Her vulnerability endears her to her reader.

In this book, like the other, she nicknames her characters based on their looks to give her reader a vivid picture of the individual. She writes of a Quarr monk who resembles Sting. “Father Sting reappeared and removed my dirty dishes” (95). This habit of the author was more charming this time around. Her monikers were more charitable this time around. (I guess monastery life agrees with her). Kindness seeped through her narrative. Kindness for others but also for herself.

Like her tale of the Camino, Christmas weaves historical stories throughout the narrative. “St Elizabeth was born in 1207, a princess, the daughter of Andrew II of Hungary)” (25). When writing of York she talks chocolate. “… (Rowntree and Terry’s both started here), its Viking roots, and its reputation as the most haunted capital of Europe…” (188). I found these historical tidbits to be very interesting, and what girl doesn't like a good chocolate-covered history lesson? They lend themselves to authenticity when immersing the reader in her narrative.

I enjoyed the descriptions of the various rooms she inhabited within the monasteries, but was less interested in the lengthy accounts of the churches within these abbeys. She also wrote of mystical experiences that she had. She writes of hearing a voice that leads her, of encounters with Satan that scare the be-Jesus out of her, and visions she has of encountering the sacred. I ate up every word of these. “…it looked like a disembodied head with wide maniacal eyes staring directly at me” (120).

Her experiences in life run so parallel to my own that I paid reverent attention to the way in which she pronounced hers. I have been married and divorced, seen the sacred, heard a voice, encountered evil and flirted with the idea of taking the veil in mid-life.

I had an epiphany while reading "What the Psychic Told the Pilgrim: A Mid-Life Misadventure on Spain’s Camino de Santiago de Compostela." This is the sort of writing I wish to do. I want to be a travel memoirist. That discovery in and of itself was a vital one I owe to the prose of fellow Canadian, Jane Christmas. I most enjoy writing of my current travels, as I did last summer when I returned from Europe, and will continue to do upon my return from Barcelona. I plan to build my own writing career around that of a travel memoirist.

If you have not sampled the prose of Jane Christmas, do yourself a favor and do so immediately. I highly recommend this book, and all of her other books.
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sue195
5.0 out of 5 stars And then there were nuns
Reviewed in France on May 31, 2015
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an interesting account of a quest to find direction though personal trauma turns out to be the main reason for seeking solace in a protected place.
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Sam
5.0 out of 5 stars Very surprising in places
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 22, 2014
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This book is very interesting. I like the writer's sense of humour. She entertains the reader while at the same time conveying the depth of trauma from her past which she is still carrying some thirty years later. I bought this book because I'd read an article in a national newspaper about the writer and the book. I wanted to find out about those amazing experiences Jane Christmas had had on the Isle of Wight. I found out indeed and I was utterly shocked by her experience at the convent there. I almost stopped reading her book at this point. I felt it just could not be true but Jane Christmas comes over as genuine, I had no reason to disbelieve her so I continued reading. I did not like finishing the book. I wanted it to keep going. I hope she is fulfilled by the life she has chosen and I am looking forward to reading all about it in the future.
3 people found this helpful
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lizziebee
4.0 out of 5 stars An entertaining read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 17, 2016
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One has to remember that Jane Christmas is a journalist first and foremost and so aims to entertain. This book is a light hearted, amusing look at her journey as to whether to be come a nun or not. It becomes obvious to the reader fairly soon that she is not cut out for convent life. She is far too gregarious and outgoing, but like many people she has a strong spiritual/religious yearning and I salute her candid look at her search and the solution she comes to, as well as the insights her monastic experiences give her about herself and her issues. This is a very personal journey written with humour and criticism for the traditional Christian religious life. Personally I found it an entertaining read.
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Katie
4.0 out of 5 stars Book Club pick
Reviewed in Canada on February 21, 2014
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I had recommended "Incontinent on the Continent" previously to my book club. We left off with Colin proposing to Jane and as far as we knew, "lived happily ever after". Surprised by this book I will be recommending it to the club as a follow up. The book itself was interesting; one often wonders about delving into that life. In fact, since reading it, I have met two local women who have been ordained later in their lives.
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