Sara Maitland is one fine writer. Having written several books of award-winning fiction and an erudite theological treatise, A Big Enough God (1994), she turns her inquisitive mind to the experience of silence. A Book of Silence is the memoir of a serious Christian who, upon reaching a dead end, sets out to discover a new way of living grounded in the ancient practices of silence and solitude. Maitland is acutely aware of the cultural criticism around these practices, particularly the turn to individualism. Rather than retreat, she vigorously defends silence as the necessary alternative to a noisy world that allows no space for the interior life and the practices that lead toward God. What makes this book compelling like no other is the theological intelligence and scientific precision she brings to her subject along with a personal desire to follow silence to its deepest conclusion.
— Roy W. Howard , OUTLOOK book editor
