The winner of my contest for the e-book of 800 or so tips, That Works For Me is…
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If you’d like to buy your own copy, you can do so here, and you can save a dollar off the $8 price of the book by using the coupon code SAVE1.
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I listened to North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell as an audiobook and loved it.
Margaret Hale has been living with her bright and beautiful cousin, Edith, until Edith’s marriage, then Margaret returns home to Halston in southern England. Shortly thereafter her father reveals that he has had a crisis of conscience and must step down from his position as a vicar. It’s not quite clear exactly what this crisis involved (one problem with an audiobook is not being able to flip through pages to reread parts where you might not have picked up on everything). He doesn’t abandon his belief in God entirely, and that is demonstrated later in the book, but he doesn’t feel he can continue as a vicar in his denomination. His close friend, Mr. Bell, has arranged for Mr. Hale to become a tutor in the northern mill town of Milton.
This throws the family into an upheaval in several ways: the loss of position, the reduction of an already small income, the move away from not only all that is dear and familiar, but also the move to a place radically different than where they have lived, chosen purposefully by Mr, Hale so as to hopefully lessen the sorrow of leaving a place he and his daughter loved.
As both Mr. and Mrs. Hale are distressed, it falls to Margaret to support them both and undertake the lion’s share of details involved in the move.
Milton is not only different because it is a busy, smoky mill town as opposed to the peaceful, quiet, rural setting the Hales came from, but the way of life and way of thinking in the North is totally different from that in the South, and thus the Hales’ interactions with people are rife with several misunderstandings on both sides. Their main contact is with a Mr. Thornton, a busy mill owner. In the course of daily life they also become acquainted with a Mr. Higgins, a common laborer, or hand, as they call the workers there, and his very ill daughter, Bessy. Through these two relationships and the tension building up to a strike, they see right and wrong on both sides of the labor issue and try their best to help the two men to understand the view of the other.
In the course of the story, two very different men seek Margaret’s hand in marriage. She is not at all interested in either of them for personal reasons and because her family depends on her so much. One is obvious at the beginning, and the other emerges as a love interest later in the story. I was actually dismayed at first, because the second one, though a decent fellow, wasn’t very likeable. The changes and growth of the characters, particularly Margaret, make the outcome of this aspect of the story a surprise until the ending.
The feel (I don’t know how else to describe it) of this book was very similar to Louisa May Alcott’s books, especially those in which the main characters undergo a reversal of fortune. Gaskell was 22 years older then Alcott, and Alcott was American while Gaskell was British, but their writing seemed very similar to me (and I regard that as a good thing!)
There are some similarities between North and South with Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: I saw North and South described somewhere as “Pride and Prejudice with a social conscience.” There are no balls or dances or frantic mothers in North and South, but there is pride and prejudice on many sides that is slowly overcome as the characters interact and come to know each other. Austen lived before Gaskell (Gaskell was seven years old when Austen died). Austen’s writings have more witty barbs and comic moments, but otherwise there are similarities in their writings as well.
Gaskell was a master of conveying human nature in this book. The words, the thoughts, and even the expressions of some of the characters had me thinking, “Yes, I can see that, I understand that exactly.”
I would not call this a Christian book, and I would differ with Gaskell’s Unitarian beliefs, but there are Christian principles through the book, and Margaret in particular offers Biblical advice as well as words of Scripture in her counsel to others.
My only previous experience with Gaskell’s writing was with Cranford (linked to my thoughts) last year, and I had thought of Cranford as “not spell-binding, but pleasant.” North and South was much more than pleasant: it was quite poignant. I wouldn’t call it riveting in the same sense as a who-done-it, but I did carry my iPhone around much more often than usual to listen to it, and I actually said out loud as it ended, “No!!! I don’t want it to end!” That’s the only real complaint: the ending was rather abrupt, but the book was originally written as a serial for Dickens’ magazine Household Words, so I don’t know if that had anything to do with it.
Juliet Stevenson narrated the book and did a marvelous job with the various voices and accents. I don’t always “think in British” when I am reading a British novel, and Juliet’s reading greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the book.
There was a BBC production of North and South which I’ve not seen, but I want to now.
I had seen Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters on DVD some years ago and really enjoyed it: I’m thinking that might be my next audiobook.
(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)
Carrie at Reading to Know has been coordinating a book club this year, hosted each month by a different blogger friend. Tim at Diary of an Autodidact) is this month’s host, and he chose any book by P. G. Wodehouse.
My only previous exposure to Wodehouse was Carry On, Jeeves (linked to my thoughts). I liked it quite a lot, but the chapters did seem variations on the same theme (Wooster or one of his friends gets in trouble and Jeeves gets them out), so I thought I’d try something from one of his other series.
I chose Psmith in the City, this time, in which English gentlemen Psmith and his friend, Mike Jackson, are thrown into the world of Commerce by starting to work at a bank. Mike’s father has had some financial problems, so Mike has had to quit college to start working in the postal room of the New Asiatic Bank. Psmith’s main purpose seems to be to win over his boss, Mr. Bickersdyke, and failing that, to get the better of him.
Psmith added the silent P to his surname to distinguish himself from other Smiths. He’s tall, thin, wears a monocle, is very generous but not terribly industrious, and is what we’d probably call a charmer. He seems to be able to talk his way out of most anything. He’s also something of a Socialist, but I think even that is for comic effect, something to play off of, rather than a political statement.
In fact, I’m not sure if there is any higher purpose to Wodehouse’s work other than humor and cleverness, and that’s all right: sometimes that’s just what one’s brain needs.
This book started off a little slow for me: the first chapter was primarily about a cricket match, and I know nothing about cricket, although I did get the point that someone walked into his way and ruined his shot. But by the third chapter things had picked up considerably. This is one of Wodehouse’s earlier works, so his skills aren’t quite as developed as the later ones, but the humor is still very evident.
I also have Galahad at Blandings on hand from the library, a sample from yet another of Wodehouse’s series (though I understand Psmith ends up at Blandings Castle eventually), but I am obviously not going to get to it before the month is up. If I have time before it is due back I might give it a try, though.
(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)
Some of you might be familiar with the Works For Me Wednesday blog carnival. It was started years ago by Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer, and then she gave it over to Kristen at We Are THAT family. Every Wednesday, scores of bloggers share a tip that they’ve found helpful in real life.
Kristen thought it would be useful to take some of the best tips shared over the years and compile them into an e-book, and she asked to use three of mine.
I have posted any tips in a while — my repertoire ran dry a while ago. But I’m glad that some folks can still see them and glean something helpful from them.
The e-book is titled That Works For Me. It contains some 800 tips divided up into 24 categories, from Babies and Blogging to Marriage to Time Management, Frugality, Decor, Cleaning, Pets — almost every category you can think of. Within each category is a list of submitted tips: a brief description and then a link to the original blog post they came from. Some are very practical, like Peanut Butter Dog Treats and iPhone Troubleshooting: some are more philosophical, like my Can Frugality Go Too Far?
There are two contests in connection with the book.
1. You can win a clean house — a $150 Visa card toward a local cleaning company — by submitting a tip here through the month of April. This contest is sponsored by the folks that compiled the e-book: if you want to enter that contest, please go there. Commenting here won’t help you win that one. 🙂
2. You can win a copy of the e-book That Works For Me! by commenting on this post.
You can earn an extra entry by “liking” the book’s Facebook page and leaving a comment here telling me you did.
You can earn and extra entry by following the book’s Pinterest page and leaving a comment here telling me you did.
You can earn an extra entry by following the book’s Twitter feed and leaving a comment telling me you did.
Also, if you want to buy the book and click through from my links here or the button at the top of the page, I get a percentage of the sale. (WordPress Police, I did get prior permission for this.) And if you’d like to save a dollar off the $8 price of the book, use the coupon code SAVE1.
I’ll draw a winner Wednsday morning, May 2, using random.org.
Have fun and enjoy the book!
The folks at 5 Minutes For Books host What’s On Your Nightstand? the fourth Tuesday of each month in which we can share about the books we have been reading and/or plan to read.
Since last time I’ve completed:
Everyday Battles: Knowing God Through Our Daily Conflicts by Bob Schultz, with my youngest son, reviewed here.
In Every Heartbeat by Kim Vogel Sawyer about three friends from the same orphanage awarded a scholarship to college just before WWI, the different routes they go, temptations they face, etc., reviewed here (including some general thoughts on romance in Christian fiction). Very good.
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, a classic medieval knight’s tale (audiobook), reviewed here. Very enjoyable.
Loving by Karen Kingsbury, the last of the Bailey Flannigan series, not reviewed. A satisfying end to Bailey’s story, despite sentences like, “He squinted against the glare of his breaking heart” (p. 90) and “His tone was so sincere it was like she had a front row seat in the arena of his heart” (p. 249). Wince.
Wonderland Creek by Lynn Austin, not reviewed, about a girl excessively caught up in her novels (and more than a touch immature and self-centered) who loses her job as a librarian during the Depression. She takes some donated books to Kentucky, ends up having to stay there much longer than she had planned, learns and grows through the frustrating and sometimes dangerous situations she encounters. Enjoyable, except I did get quite perturbed that the two primary Christians in the book forced (at gunpoint in one instance), coerced, and even tricked her into doing what they wanted, which is not how Christians should usually operate.
Grace for the Good Girl: Letting Go of the Try-Hard Life by Emily P. Freeman, reviewed here. Excellent.
I’m currently reading/listening to:
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (audiobook). Enjoying it very much!
The Fiddler by Beverly Lewis.
Psmith in the City by P. D. Wodehouse for Carrie’s book club in April.
Next up:
I have Galahad at Blandings by Wodehouse on hand from the library for Carrie’s April book club, but will wait to see if I have time after I finish Psmith. There are not many days left in April!
Infinitely More by Alex Krutov, nonfiction about an abandoned orphan in Russia whom God brought to Himself.
It Is Not Death to Die: A New Biography of Hudson Taylor by Jim Cromarty.
When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin.
Raising Real Men: Surviving, Teaching, and Appreciating Boys by Hal and Melanie Young.
That should keep me busy for a while. What are you reading?
The premise of Grace for the Good Girl: Letting Go of the Try-Hard Life by Emily P. Freeman is that “Somewhere along the way I got the message that salvation is by faith alone but anything after that is faith plus my hard work and sweet disposition” (p. 14). Even though those of us who have embraced the gospel know better (or should), deep down somewhere we feel like we need to put up a good front of having it all together spiritually, and so we hide behind masks that Emily discusses in depth: good performance, good reputation, a “fake ‘fine,'” acts of service, spiritual disciplines, strength and responsibility, our comfort zones. Some of these are fine in themselves, but they are not meant to be masks. Spiritual disciplines, for instance, should be a part of our communication with Christ, not something we do for appearance’s sake.
I’ve marked multitudes of quotes that really hit home. Here are a few:
I constantly worried that my imperfect status would be discovered. I often experienced guilt but didn’t know why. I felt the heavy weight of impossible expectations and had the insatiable desire to explain every mistake (p. 13)
Instead of recognizing my own inadequacy as an opportunity to trust God, I hid those parts and adopted a bootstrap religion. I focused on the things I could handle, the things I excelled in, my disciplined life, and my unshakeable good mood (p. 13).
I taught the people around me I had no needs and was secretly angry with them for believing me (p. 13).
I have the expectation of myself to be a good girl, a good Christian, a good wife, and a good mom. Not such bad things, until you understand my own personal, twisted definition of “good.” Good means I never mess up. Good means I weigh the perfect amount. Good means I can handle everything. I don’t look like a fool, and I never lose my patience. Good means my husband will never be disappointed in me, my kids will always obey, and everyone basically likes me…If I fail to live up to my own standard of good, I label myself a failure (p. 25).
Feeling scared meant I needed more faith. Feeling anger meant I needed more control. Feeling confused meant I needed to get it together and figure things out. In theory, I knew I was supposed to cast my fear, anger, and confusion on the Lord. But after “trusting” him with my circumstances, I thought it was my responsibility to change the emotions and keep myself from experiencing them again (p. 55).
Since when does the awesomeness of my testimony depend on the extremity of my rebellion? (p. 100).
Where are you? God asks, not because he doesn’t know, but because he knows I have to come out of hiding in order to be found (p. 114).
Having a quiet time sometimes left me feeling as if I had accomplished something rather than related with a person. I equate it to working out: I don’t do it very often, but when I do I feel better about myself and slightly superior to those who may not have done the same that day (p. 151).
The mask-wearing good girl is all about herself. In her most secret place, she wants the glory. But it is only in him that we have been made complete (p. 157).
Part of the solution is:
It isn’t me doing work for God, but it is me trusting God to do the work in me (p. 63).
The story of redemption and healing is that Jesus came to exchange my not-good-enough with his better-than-I-could-ever-imagine (p. 137).
He still asks for our obedience, but it is no longer obedience to the law. Now we are called as believers to be obedient to the truth…This obedience to the truth doesn’t come naturally or automatically. There is laboring. There is striving. But this striving has the potential to be new and light and joyful (p. 135).
The work is not according to the mask we wear; it is according to his power that works within us. It isn’t an external attempt, to live up to the law; it occurs on the spirit level where we are united to Christ (p. 135).
These last two quotes, to me, set apart this book from a lot of what I hear and read about grace these days. Some take it so far as to deny that there is any kind of obedience or striving, and that makes me wary of any grace-based or grace-emphasized talk (not wary of the basis of grace, but how some apply it). But I think Emily struck the perfect balance.
I was also a little wary because I can’t endorse some of the people she quotes, but I think I pretty much agree with just about everything she said herself.
It’s so easy to fall into doing (or not doing) things because good Christian girls do (or don’t) rather then letting what we do or don’t do flow from love for Christ and His power that works in us. We need frequent reminders. In all honesty, I still struggle at times with what’s God’s part and what’s my part in dealing with certain besetting sins: I know I can’t defeat them on my own, yet He doesn’t just come in and remove them all at once: there is a process of growth and there has to be a measure of obedience, yet even that comes from His strength and not my own. I “know” these things in my head, yet I’m still working them out in daily life.
And if I can step away from the book for a moment, we need to have grace for other good girls as well (maybe that’s an idea for another book, Emily. 🙂 ) Often I’ve seen and experienced ways that Christians react when we show that we don’t have it all together that reinforces that performance-based lifestyle rather than coming alongside them in empathy and helping them regain Biblical perspective.
This is another difficult area because the Bible does tell us to provoke one another to love and to good works, to restore one another when we’ve sinned, to even rebuke each other when we’ve done wrong. But I don’t think that means that when one speaks of worrying over an issue, another says, “Well it’s a sin to worry, you know” or just pats them on the back and quotes Romans 8:28. Our pastor shared a perfect example of this recently. He said he was with someone when he received bad news, and at first there was a lot of what he called “spewing,” wondering what was going on, why had God let this happen, etc. As my pastor said, “It wasn’t a time for platitudes.” Later, when things calmed down, then he could help him gain perspective by reminding him of God’s presence and promises and power. And I think that should be our response as well.
Some years ago in a prayer meeting, someone said that so-and-so just found out he had cancer and his wife wasn’t handling the news very well. He didn’t elaborate, but I wondered what he meant by “not handling it well.” Fast forward several years to when I contracted transverse myelitis and was involved in an e-mail support group which contained many nonchristian people. I thought that to be a good Christian testimony I needed to always approach things in faith and victory with a smile. At some point a new lady came into the group who was also a Christian, but she had a different view: she felt it was more honest, more human, more empathetic to let people in on the struggles, to acknowledge when life hurt. And I think she’s right. How often I’ve been comforted by the Psalms because they show a range of emotion and even anguish, yet they almost always end with resting in God.
Perhaps I should have saved some of the above for another blog post. This book has provoked thoughts in a number of areas, but I’d probably better stop before I quote half the book or make this any longer. I’m still processing some of it, but overall I’d recommend it.
(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)
I listened to Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott via audiobook from Audible.com: I got it when they had a $4.97 sale on several of their audiobooks.
The setting is 12th century England just after the Third Crusade. Many knights were headed back to England, King Richard the Lion-Hearted was thought to be a prisoner of the Duke of Austria, England was ruled by Richard’s unscrupulous brother, Prince John. The Normans has conquered the Saxons some years earlier and there was still bad blood between them. Ivanhoe was a knight who had been off to fight the Third Crusade with Richard, and because of his alliance to the Norman Richard, his Saxon father disinherited him.
As the story opens, Ivanhoe is not thought to be back from the Crusades yet. His father, Cedric, wants his ward, Rowena, to marry his close friend, Aethelstane. Those two are the last of the Saxon noble lineage and the last best chance for uniting the Saxons’ power to resist the Norman rule, at least in Cedric’s mind. But Rowena loves Ivanhoe, and of course Cedric will not allow her to marry him.
At a tournament, a two disguised knights figure prominently. You might guess who the one called the Disinherited Knight was. My first guess about the other, the Black Knight (also called the Black Sluggard because he did not fight except to assist the first knight) was wrong, but my second guess was right. A yeoman named Locksley also distinguished himself and annoyed Prince John in the archery segment.
On the way home after the tournament, Cedric’s party, including Rowena, Aethelstane, and a Jew named Isaac and his daughter, Rebecca, were attacked and captured by a group of knights, one of whom was attracted to Rowena and somehow thought capturing her in this way would convince her of the depth of his passion for her. Of course, she refused him, and meanwhile friends of Cedric made plans to storm the castle, joined by Locksley, also known as Robin Hood, and his merry men.
The results of that battle, which lead to another capture and another climax, I’ll leave you to discover if you decide to read the book.
The book started out very slowly at first, but once the action picked up the story held my attention pretty well. There are the classic elements of this type of story: chivalry, quests, castles, knights, good vs. evil. etc. The evil isn’t embodied in any one person or group: the knights, the politicians, and even the priests all have corrupt segments.
Robin Hood was the stuff of folklore long before this, but this book is credited with describing him as we think of him these days.
There are wry comic elements and characters as well. One line about two priests “vituperating each other in bad Latin” cracked me up.
The one jarring element in the book is the extreme prejudice against the Jews. They are constantly called names (“Dog of a Jew!’ “Daughter of an accursed race!” Somehow they missed their description of them in the Bible as God’s chosen people.) One character, on thinking he was about to die along with a Jew in the storming of the castle, thought it would be better to kill the Jew than to die in his company and would have killed him if something else had not interfered. According to Wikipedia, “The book was written and published during a period of increasing struggle for emancipation of the Jews in England, and there are frequent references to injustice against them.” I’m not sure whether Scott was writing to highlight these injustices so as to call attention to them for the purpose of alleviating them, or if he just considered them normal, but they are very disturbing.
By the way, the Wikipedia article does tell pretty much most of the plot of the book, so if you’re wanting to read the book I wouldn’t advise looking there too much til afterward.
Every now and then I get a craving to read something medieval, and this certainly fit the bill. I hadn’t known much about this time period, but after finishing the book I was curious enough to spend some time looking up this era, the Crusades, the Knights Templar, etc.
The audiobook was read by a Michael Page, and he did a marvelous job giving different voices to a wide variety of different characters, from knights and nobles, to women, to snooty priests, to the amusing Robin Hood and Friar Tuck and Jester Wamba, to the old Jew Isaac and his daughter Rebecca.
Overall the time spent listening to Ivanhoe was a very enjoyable experience and made driving time enjoyable rather than boring. You can probably find a copy of the book in your library, and the text is online here and here.
(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)
Everyday Battles: Knowing God Through Our Daily Conflicts is the fourth and last of Bob Schultz’s books for boys and young men. I read it with my youngest son. The author passed away before this book was completed and his daughter got what he had ready for print and added an epilogue.
Bob covered a lot of ground in the book, from confrontations, chastisement, fightings within, refuge, and more. One chapter discussed why some OT battles came about when the temple of God was neglected or filled with abominations and what lessons that has for us. You would expect some discussion about the armor described in Ephesians 6, but only a couple of pieces are mentioned. I don’t know if he meant to get to the rest of it before he passed away. He discusses how a good, loving, wise and kind God allows battles.
His overall theme is that God has something to teach you during battles: something about yourself, but mainly something about Himself.
One quote I especially liked was in the context of boys wrestling. He discusses why he thinks it is okay to allow it, right and wrong times and places for it, and then he says:
If you find yourself frustrated because you’re losing, don’t lash out in anger. Discover why you’re getting beat. Let it motivate you to learn new skills or develop more strength. I wrestled a guy called Herfy for years and never won a match, yet I gained many tricks I’ve successfully used since (p. 15-16).
There is a lot of wisdom there that can be applied to many areas.
This quote bothered me a little at first:
The one thing I want to learn in life is to understand and practically experience abiding in Christ. I’m not looking for some Bible lesson to discuss or some theory to question. I want to live in harmony with the One who created the universe while I’m building houses, driving my truck, walking hand in hand with my wife or my daughters. I want to hear His voice, watch Him work, and follow Him in every adventure He wants to lead me through (p. 31).
At first reading it sounded to me like he was downplaying Bible reading and study in favor of seeking God through experience. But as I thumbed through several pages while preparing for this review, I was reminded that he referred to the Bible often, much more than I had remembered, and drew much of what he taught from the Bible. So I think perhaps what he is getting at here is that he doesn’t want his spiritual experience to be all academic, but rather he wanted it to carry through to the rest of his life.
I also expected to see some discussion on what we commonly hear of as the enemies of Christians and how to combat them: the world (I John 5:4-5), the flesh (Galatians 5:16-17), and the devil (James 4:7-8, Matthew 4:1-11, Ephesians 6:17). There was some mention of fighting the flesh, but not much. Again, I don’t know if that’s something he would have included if he had lived long enough to complete the book, but my son and I are discussing some of these passages in the aftermath of reading the book.
My feelings immediately after the book were disappointment at what he didn’t include what I would have, but then if you get any five people, even any five Christians to write a book on one topic, you’re probably going to end up with five very different books though they might cover some of the same ground. And as I went back over parts of the book for review, I was reminded of many good aspects of it and good things he did bring out. The book isn’t necessarily a manual for how to fight battles, though he discusses some of that: it’s mainly an encouragement to seek the heart of God and draw close to Him through the battles He allows.
(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)
In Every Heartbeat by Kim Vogel Sawyer is about three friends from the same orphanage awarded a scholarship to college just before WWI.
Libby wants to be a famous journalist. She’s not tomboyish exactly, but she gets along with boys better than girls and isn’t interested in the same things as her high-society roommate, Alice-Marie.
Pete is called to preach, and though he is the most spiritually mature of the three, he harbors resentment towards his parents because their sending him to work as a child resulted in an accident and the loss of his leg. His parents are the only ones living (as far as we know), and he thinks if he can just find them and get his feelings off his chest, he will relieve that burden from his mind.
Bennett is the most jovial of the three, always ready to jump into a good fight, and avidly searches for significance. He thinks he’ll find it by joining the most prestigious fraternity on campus, but makes an enemy on campus the first day who stands in his way.
As the back of the book says, “the friends’ differing aspirations and opinions begin to divide them.” I like the way the author detailed the flaws and problems of each character and wove them together. Each faces a crisis of some sort and learns and grows along the way.
One of the most important aspects of the book in my opinion comes up in Libby’s story. (Mild spoiler ahead.) She tries to find work at a newspaper but is told by one editor to come back later when she’s gotten through college and had some experience. She discovers in the meantime that she can write fiction for a women’s romance magazine to earn money and gain experience. From what I can tell it’s not lurid romance, but it does focus more on the physical. At the same time, Pete has to come up with a class project that involves “taking on” a problem of the day and finding a way to combat it and stand up for truth. When he sees some girls giggling over such a magazine as the one Libby writes for, he decides to take on that kind of titillating romance story and writes a letter to the editor in protest, unaware that his friend, Libby, is writing that kind of story.
In the course of the book, Libby has to come to terms with her writing (I’ll let you discover how in the book so as not to spill too much of the plot here 🙂 ), and the difference between a romance that titillates and a romance that reflects Christ’s love for his people is made pretty clear, in my opinion. Yet as I looked through some of the reviews on Amazon, I was very surprised that a number of reviewers there didn’t understand what the author was doing and made comments like, “Why is she criticizing romance novels when she’s writing one?” I wouldn’t classify this book as primarily a romance novel, though it has romance in it (that’s the type of book I prefer. I don’t usually go for books that are just “handsome boy meets beautiful girl and falls in love,” end of story.) But I have also seen good people sweep all romance novels, Christian or not, under the rug as portraying relationships in an unhealthy way. There certainly are those types of romances, even in Christian fiction, and we need to be careful that we’re not reading things that will either accent the physical or portray a hero and heroine and relationship so perfect and unreal that we can never be satisfied with real life. But a romance that portrays flawed characters who find each other and find grace to overcome obstacles and love each other despite their flaws as Christ loved the church, with a love that wants the best for the other even at the cost of sacrifice to oneself — that’s pretty realistic to me, and I don’t see anything wrong with that. In fact, I think that can encourage the right kind of romance. And I think that’s what Libby discovers, too.
As I got into this book, I began to think some of the characters sounded a little familiar, and I realized they were from another of Kim’s books, My Heart Remembers. I had read that a few months ago and thought I had reviewed it, but I hadn’t. In Every Heartbeat reads fine without having to go back and pick up My Heart Remembers, but if you’ve read the first book you’ll enjoy the second, and if you’ve read the second you might enjoy going back to see where some of the characters came from.
I enjoy books that I get more out of as I think about them even days after finishing them, and this book is one of those.
(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)
The folks at 5 Minutes For Books host What’s On Your Nightstand? the fourth Tuesday of each month in which we can share about the books we have been reading and/or plan to read.
Here is what I have completed since last time:
Saving Graces: the Inspirational Writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder edited by Stephen Hines, reviewed here.
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, reviewed here. I think I am one of the last on the planet to read it, but I am very glad I did. Excellent.
His Ways, Your Walk, an as-yet unpublished book by my friend. Lou Ann Keiser, missionary in Spain. This was the first time I was honored to be asked to read someone’s manuscript. It’s mainly teaching from the few Scripture verses with direct instruction to women. I look forward to letting you know when it’s published!
Intervention by Terri Blackstock (audiobook). This and the next one are the first and last in the Invention series about a daughter’s drug addiction. Very good.
Downfall by Terri Blackstock (Kindle app).
The Big 5-Oh! by Sandra Bricker. Light, fun reading. Good.
The last three weren’t fully reviewed, but I bunched them up with a short review of each here.
Last time I had finished a couple of books but hadn’t reviewed them as of the Nightstand post. Those are The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie by Wendy McClure, reviewed here and Practical Happiness: A Young Man’s Guide to a Contented Life by Bob Schultz, with my youngest son, Jesse, not fully reviewed but discussed briefly here.
I am currently reading/listening to:
Everyday Battles: Knowing God Through Our Daily Conflicts by Bob Schultz, with my youngest son.
In Every Heartbeat by Kim Vogel Sawyer about three friends from the same orphanage awarded a scholarship to college just before WWI, the different routes they go, temptations they face, etc.
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, classic medieval knight’s tale (maybe the forerunner? I’m not sure — will have to check that out.) Was surprised to find Robin Hood making an appearance here. Evidently, from what I’ve read, though he was a subject of much folklore, but our modern conception of him began as he was depicted in Ivanhoe. I’m listening to this as an audiobook, and it was hard to keep my attention on it at first (a lot of description and background I’d have gleaned more from by reading), but now it is keeping me listening closely.
Next up:
It’s hard to choose which book from my spring reading plan list to read next, but I am leaning toward:
Infinitely More by Alex Krutov, nonfiction about an abandoned orphan in Russia whom God brought to Himself.
Grace for the Good Girl: Letting Go of the Try-Hard Life by Emily P. Freeman.
Loving by Karen Kingsbury, the last of the Bailey Flanigan series.
What’s on your nightstand?
Happy reading!
Stray Thoughts 