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’s what I finished since last time:

Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero by Michael Hingson, reviewed here, pretty interesting.

Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk by Dale and Jonalyn Fincher, recommended by Lisa, reviewed here, mixed emotions.

Love’s Pursuit by Siri Mitchell, Christian fiction about a woman in Puritan New England struggling to live by “the rules” yet realizing they were not helping her to be truly righteous, reviewed here. One of those books that keeps you thinking long after you close it.

The Mercy by Beverly Lewis, last of The Rose trilogy, not reviewed, but a fitting wrap-up and an enjoyable read.

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell, reviewed here, pleasant but not riveting.

I’m currently reading:

Created for Work: Practical Insights for Young Men by Bob Schultz, reading with my youngest son.

While We’re Far Apart by Lynn Austin.

The Best Seat in the House: How I Woke Up One Tuesday and Was Paralyzed for Life by Allen Rucker about dealing with transverse myelitis (same ailment I have) and it’s after-effects. Very interesting though marred by a smattering of bad language.

Next up are:

Longing, book three in the Bailey Flanigan series by Karen Kingsbury.

One Imperfect Christmas by Myra Johnson.

I haven’t decided for sure what’s after that, but I have a stack of a dozen or so to choose from, not to mention my ever-growing TBR list.

I also wanted to let my fellow readers know I am hosting a Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge here in February. You can read more about it here. Hope you’ll make plans to join us!

Love’s Pursuit by Siri Mitchell takes place in a Puritan community in Stoneybrooke, Massachusettes. Susannah Phillips outwardly is a model of Puritan goodness and righteousness, but inwardly she almost constantly wrestles with wrong desires and motives.

A perceived threat of Indian attack leads the government to send a captain out to protect the community and train the men to defend themselves, and his “heathen” dress and ways stand out. The captain boards with Susannah’s family, and at first his talk about God, so different from her understanding, seems foolish to her. But gradually some of what he says begins to penetrate her thinking and make her wonder if what he says is true.

The captain unsettles not just her religious thinking, but her romantic notions. She is almost engaged to John Prescotte, but the captain makes his interest clear.

Furthermore, town leader and most eligible bachelor Simeon Wright shows an unwelcome interest in Susannah as well. Though outwardly Simeon is the epitome of Puritan manhood, there’s something not quite right about him from the very beginning.

A subplot concerns a young goodwife named Small-hope, rescued from an abusive home by her husband, yet holding herself protectively away from him as well as the rest of the community. Will the need to save someone else propel her from her shell, or will she stay safely retreated?

The story doesn’t go where one thinks it will at first: in fact, the climax almost had me wailing out loud, “Noooooo!!!!” But I think it underscored that the “love’s pursuit” Susannah most needed was not man’s, but God’s.

Love’s Pursuit is no featherweight romance. Siri Mitchell has done a marvelous job drawing the characters and portraying Susannah’s inner turmoil in her relationship with God and man as well as the problems of living in a community where one’s righteousness is based on performance and keeping the rules.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

I first heard of Cranford when I saw ads for the BBC production. Somehow I wasn’t drawn in enough to tape it then, but when I saw the book during Borders’ close-out sales, I picked it up.

I hadn’t read anything by Elizabeth Gaskell, though I enjoyed the DVD of Wives and Daughters.

This book was originally told as installments in Charles Dickens’ magazine, Household Words. That may be why there doesn’t seem to be much of an overall plot arc, but rather a series of vignettes into the lives of a group of ladies who are friends in mid-nineteenth century England.

At first, when the story began by describing how the community was mostly made up of women, I was afraid it was going to be a pre-feminist rant against men, but thankfully that was not the case.

The two central characters are sisters, Deborah and Matty Jenkyns. Deborah is the stronger of the two, and thus her influence on Matty lingers long after Deborah dies fairly early in the book. Deborah is firm and opinionated: Matty is sweet but easily confused. The story is told through the eyes of a frequent visitor, Mary Smith.

At first, honestly, I was a little bored with the book. But gradually I began to see the humor in various incidents and a little Austenesque poke at the ironies of life in those times, people’s foibles, etc. In one example, the ladies were visiting a Mrs. Jamieson, who had both milk and cream for tea time but gave the cream to her spoiled dog, Carlo. “[Carlo] knew cream quite well, and constantly refused tea with only milk in it: so the milk was left for us, but we silently thought we were quite as intelligent and sensible as Carlo, and felt as if insult were added to injury, when we were called upon to admire the gratitude evinced by his wagging his tail for the cream, which should have been ours.”

By the later chapters the book seemed more of a character study of Matty, who at first seems simple and unassuming but is gradually revealed to bear up under trials large and small, including the loss of a brother, the loss of a possibility, of love, and the loss of fortune with a depth of character, fortitude, and sweetness. Other characters in the book, as well, show strength and compassion in spite of their idiosyncrasies.

One of my favorite quotes in the book comes when one member of the friends is engaged, to the shock of the others. Maddy softens to the idea before the others and says, “A man has a sort of knowledge of what should be done in difficulties, that it is very pleasant to have one at hand ready to lean upon.”

This edition is a Penguin Classic with copious end notes. I’d so much rather they had been footnotes, because it did interrupt the flow of the story to keep  having to turn to the back of the book, but I kept doing so, afraid I was going to miss something enlightening. I think there were a few too many notes, unless this was designed for younger students: some of its explanations seemed obvious to me.

I had wanted to watch the BBC film before reviewing the book, but I hadn’t realized it was a five part series including material from others of Gaskell’s books. I might look for it during the summer.

Cranford wasn’t spell-binding and didn’t leave me eager to add another Gaskell book to the queue, but it turned out to be a pleasant read in the end.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Last year during Carrie‘s Lucy Maud Montgomery Reading Challenge, I remarked that I was thinking about doing the same thing with either Laura Ingalls Wilder or Louisa May Alcott. There seemed to be a lot of interest in Laura, so in trying to determine what month would be good for a challenge, I saw that her birth and death both occurred in February. February seemed the ideal month, then, to have a reading challenge focused on Laura Ingalls Wilder.

You can read anything Laura has written or anything written about Laura. You can read alone or with your children or a friend. You can read just one book or several throughout the month — whatever works with your schedule. If you’d like to prepare some food or crafts somehow relating to Laura or her books, that would be really neat too.

On Feb 1, 2012, I’ll have a post up where you can sign in and let us know you’ll be participating and what you think you’d like to read that month. That way we can peek in on each other through the month and see how it’s going (that’s half the fun of a reading challenge). On Wed., Feb. 29, I’ll have another post where you can share with us links to your wrap-up post. Of course if you want to post through the month as you read, as well, that would be great, and I might share those from time to time. You don’t have to have a blog to participate: you can just leave your impressions in the comments if you like.

I’m really looking forward to getting back in touch with these books. I’ve read the whole original Little House series at least once, maybe more, but I am not sure whether I’ll reread those or a biography of her and a book of her newspaper columns I have been wanting to get to as well.

So, what do you think? Anyone interested? Make plans now to join us this February — I’m looking forward to seeing you then!

Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero tells of Michael Hingson’s ordeal on 9/11. He was working on the 78th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center when he and his colleagues heard an explosion and felt the building tilt. Not knowing what had happened, they evacuated everyone and then tried to power down computers and such, but quickly decided they need to leave the building. The only way to do so was by 1,463 stairs.

There was just one problem. Michael has been blind almost since birth and had his guide dog, Roselle, with him.

But it’s not really a problem. Michael’s parents “mainstreamed” him before the concept became popular. During his childhood Michael’s parents calmly fielded neighbor’s concerned calls about their blind son zipping around the neighborhood on his bicycle.

Interspersed between details of 9/11 are flashbacks from Michael’s life: childhood, education, work life, acquisitions of guide dogs, marriage, and then how 9/11 impacted the rest of his life. Though I know that’s the style these days, I do miss the time when a book started at the beginning and told a story straight through to the end. But it’s not at all hard to follow, and both aspects of the story are quite interesting.

(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. You can learn more about it by clicking the link or the button.

Well, the end of this month didn’t catch me by surprise as the last few have. Here’s what I’ve been reading since last time.

I finished:

Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World, edited by C. J. Mahaney, reviewed here. Excellent.

Boyhood and Beyond: Practical Wisdom for Becoming a Man by Bob Schultz, reviewed here, read with my son. Excellent as well.

By Searching: My Journey Through Doubt Into Faith and In the Arena by Isobel Kuhn, reviewed together here. Excellent, among my most often reread books. Isobel was a missionary to China and these books wonderfully detail things the Lord taught her both in coming to faith in God and then in living for Him.

The Little Women Letters by Gabrielle Donnelly, reviewed here. Story of a descendent of the March family who discovers some of Jo’s letters. Loved the premise but was greatly disappointed in the book.

Abandoned: The Shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber. I dropped it early on due to explicit sexual content (who knew such would be in a book about ladies getting to know one another over knitting?!)

I’m currently reading:

Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk by Dale and Jonalyn Fincher, recommended by Lisa.

Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero by Michael Hingson.

With my son: Created for Work: Practical Insights for Young Men by Bob Schultz.

Next up:

Love’s Pursuit by Siri Mitchell.

The Mercy by Beverly Lewis, last of The Rose trilogy.

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell.

What have you been reading?

In The Little Women Letters by Gabrielle Donnelly, a descendant of Jo March discovers some of her letters the attic. The modern Atwater family has three sisters who are similar in some ways to the March sisters, and Lulu, the one most like Jo, is the one to discover the letters. She’s at a crossroads in her life but doesn’t know which way to go and is getting heartily tired of questions and advice about career paths she should take. Over time she finds comfort in the similarities between herself and her great-great grandmother Jo. Meanwhile older, sensible sister Emma is preparing to be married and younger, vivacious sister Sophie is trying various acting roles.

The Atwater family isn’t meant to be an exact modern representation of the March family, but there are similarities, and some plot lines that follow incidents in Alcott’s book.

But there are differences as well…

The March girls had their spats, but they were teens and younger and learned to handle their differences better as they matured. The Atwater girls are all grown and out of their childhood home yet fight constantly and are quick to take offense. They were relating to other other better by the end of the book, but I got so sick of their bickering. The March girls seemed normal; the Atwater girls excessive.

Then, there is a wholesomeness to Little Women, which is missing from this book. This one has a smattering of “damns,” “hells,” and God’s name thrown around as an expression of disgust and exasperation (which I hate). I knew to expect that in a secular novel (and I am sure it is tame compared to a lot of what is out there), but I don’t have to like it. There is a quite vulgar sentence from a drunk man in a section where Lulu is working in a pub: we didn’t need to have that in order to get the idea of what kind of man he was and what Lulu faced while working there.

The counterpart to wise Marmee is feminist Fee, a free spirit who was married barefoot on the beach by a shaman. In a scene that hearkens back to Meg’s spending more than she should have buying fabric that she then has to ask her more well-to-do friend to buy back from her, Emma falls in love with a pair of designer shoes that cost as much as the refrigerator she and her boyfriend have been saving for, and in a moment of weakness lets herself be talked into buying them for her wedding. When she tells her mother about it, Fee says that because “the woman works far harder around the home than the man does,” she entitled to treat herself now and then (pp. 120-121). 🙄

I think it also jarred me a little that the book was set in England. Not that I am prejudiced against the British, but Little Women was very much an American book, set in a staunch New England family. I would have felt just as jarred if the modern family was distinctly Southern or western, even though it’s perfectly plausible that the March descendants would be scattered far beyond New England. And I don’t usually have trouble “getting” either dramas or comedies set in England, but I wonder if the setting had to do with my not understanding some of the humor — though the father’s having an imaginary wife struck me as very odd rather than humorous.

There were aspects I did like to the author’s writing. A couple of times she skillfully led me along thinking the plot was going to go one way and then it surprised me. She conveyed Lulu’s feeling of not fitting in anywhere (much like Jo’s) very well. By the end of the book I was more sympathetic to the characters and I liked how the book ended.

But overall, though the premise was wonderful, I am afraid the book fell far short of my expectations.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)