The Barn at the End of the World. Mary Rose O'Reilley

Deciding that her life was insufficiently grounded in real-world experience, Mary Rose O'Reilley, a Quaker reared as a Catholic, embarked on a year of tending sheep. In this often hilarious book, O'Reilley describes her work in an agricultural barn and her extended visit to a Buddhist monastery in France, where she studied with Thich N'hat Hanh. She seeks, in both barn and monastery, a spirituality based not in «climbing out of the body» but rather in existing fully in the world.