I finished two of the books on my spring reading list: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen and Forever by Karen Kingsbury.

I have to say I didn’t like Sense and Sensibility as much as I did Pride and Prejudice, though I liked the film version of it more. It may be because I read it in kind of a disjointed way. The “show, don’t tell” mantra of writing apparently wasn’t in vogue then. 🙂 And there seemed to me to be a lot of derogatory sarcasm rather than a gentle poking of fun at the foibles of others. I felt that I got a fully-fleshed out version of Elinor, Marianne, Mrs. Jennings, and a few others, but not really of Edward Ferrars and Colonel Brandon. I liked Marianne’s progression in the book. I was disappointed that one of the main  storylines was wrapped up with the anticlimactic, “About three hours after his arrival he had secured his lady’s hand, engaged her mother’s consent, and was not only in the rapturous profession of the lover, but in the reality of reason and truth, one of the happiest of men.” I thought, “That’s all you’re going to tell us after waiting for this moment all through the book?!” It may be that in that time such moments were considered private and handled with discretion — I can’t remember how the similar scenes in P&P were handled. It also may be that the events leading up to a climax just before this were considered the major components of the story, and this result considered just a natural outflow. Overall I am glad I read the book, though, and want to continue on exploring Austen’s works.

Forever is the last in the second series about the Baxter family: the first was the Redemption series with five books; the Firstborn series followed and ends with this fifth book. The Baxter saga will continue and conclude with the Sunrise series, the first book of which is due out May 8 (I didn’t know that when I made my reading list, but will definitely add this one on!)

One thing that you can definitely say about Karen is that she knows how to spin a story, how to draw you in and make you care about the characters.  I have heard her speak three times now, and between that and her comments at the end of her books, I know her heart is to convey Scriptural truth to her audience. And I think she does do that. My only relatively minor criticisms are that I think she overplays the emotional aspects of a story a little bit, and I have heard her say that she tends to write fast, and I think that shows just a little (I didn’t think to make note of particular examples).

Some of her books do have kind of a made-for-TV-movie feel to them. But I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I have heard some criticize many of the modern Christian fiction writers for not being very “literary.” But, you know — a high-end literary classic style just isn’t going to appeal to everyone. I think of it kind of like this: I love some of the meaty, doctrinal, literary hymns of the 1700s. But I also like short and simple choruses that emphasize one truth that I hum around the house while I’m dusting. I think there is a place for both styles. And I think that’s true in literature, too. Some of these thoughts have me considering a post along the lines, “Just what does make a classic, anyway?” I might explore that some time.

But for now, back from general principles to this book, this continues the story of Dayne Matthews and Katy Hart and a major obstacle to their wedding plans, while the rest of the Baxter family is still coming to grips with the reality of Dayne’s being part of the family. The underlying theme has to do with loving and serving others, and this is played out in several different directions. One of my favorite scenes was when Regan thinks her husband, Luke, is leaving her alone with the children when he gets home in the evening, cleaning the stovetop in the kitchen piece by piece, after she’s been alone with the kids all day and wants not only a break but time with him, but later realizes that that’s his way of showing love (“acts of service,” if you’ve ever read or heard of the Five Love Languages.) I think Luke’s and Regan’s struggles to find a way to get on the same page in the midst of the problems in their lives is probably pretty typical of many couples.

I was a little disappointed that one of the major storylines wasn’t wrapped up at the end of the book — I discovered that accidentally at an author event with Karen Kingsbury when someone from the crowd mentioned it, so I was a little sad knowing ahead of time. But, when I got to the end, I could understand why it was written that way.

I am looking forward to Sunrise. I don’t know how many books will be in this final series, but it will be a little sad to have the Baxter’s story come to an end.

I went to the library this morning to try to check out A Tree Grows in Brooklyn or The Princess Bride, but they didn’t have a copy of either one at any library in our system. :O  There’s always Amazon.com, I know, but I hadn’t intended to buy them (my bookshelves are over-flowing). I guess I can always resell them if I decide I don’t want to keep them. I just got a Barnes and Noble coupon in my e-mail this morning — I may go see if they have one or the other.

I just discovered, through Katrina at Callapidder Days, a weekly meme about books called Booking Through Thursday. I had never seen or heard of it before, but it is right up my alley! Every week they ask a question about reading or books.

Today’s question is:

Where do you do most of your reading? Your favorite spot? (Show a picture, if you want to!)

(And yes, I understand that these might not be the same thing–your favorite spot could be the beach, but you do most of your reading at home . . . in which case, tell me about both!)

Well, probably most of my reading most days is done in the bathroom. 😳 (What a way to begin this meme!!) May as well make good use of the time, right? 🙂

My favorite place to read, though, is at the end of one of the couches with my legs stretched out on the couch and a throw blanket over me.

The little pillow below, the longer one, is just right to lean my neck against when I am sitting sideways on the couch. It’s special to me because it was a gift from my mom

I also like to read while traveling — traveling is not my best thing, and reading keeps my mind occupied as well as provides a pleasant way to occupy my time. I also read in doctor’s waiting rooms — the ability to read undistracted almost makes up for having to wait an hour to be seen.

Katrina at Callapidder Days is hosting another reading challenge: the Spring Reading Thing. 🙂 The idea is to set a goal for yourself of the books you want to read this spring between March 21 and June 21 (the first and last days of spring). There’s no pressure — if you don’t finish your list, fine; if you want to take a book off or add one, that’s fine, too. I found when we did this last fall that the challenge provided more purpose to my reading and helped me actually read some books I had in mind to get to “some day” rather than just randomly grabbing something off the Christian bookstore shelf.

If you’d like to join the challenge, you can post what books you are planning to read link to Katrina’s, and then place the url of your post in the Mr. Linky there so others can see what you’re reading. And there are prizes involved! Click on the picture to get more information at Katrina’s site and to sign up.

Whether you join the challenge or not, you can also go there just to see what other people are reading — but have something handy to jot down the interesting books that you’ll find that you might want to read, too!

Here is my list: a little on the light side as spring is a busy season for us, but I may add more if I complete these:

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. I am in the middle of this from my winter reading list — didn’t get it finished yet.

Persuasion by Jane Austen. I’m continuing to make my way through Jane Austen’s books. I loved the film of this.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. I first heard of this on a Bugs Bunny cartoon years ago. For some reason Bugs was reading it as he walked off into the sunset. 🙂 Then a few years ago I saw an old black and white movie of it on TV. My heart went out to the little girl whose father was an alcoholic because mine was, too, and I’ve wanted to read this ever since.

The Princess Bride by William Goldman. Loved the movie but hadn’t realized it came from a book. I almost always love books better than the movies made from them, so if that holds true here, I should really love this one. I’ll let you know.

Renovating Becky Miller by Sharon Hinck. I had read her first book, The Secret Life of Becky Miller, last year and loved it. It was the first book I wrote about on my blog. I’m excited to see what Becky’s up to now.

Forever by Karen Kingsbury. I think this is the last of the Firstborn series.

The Ultimate Weight Solution by Dr. Phil McGraw. I am not a Dr. Phil fan — I’m not against him either, really — I haven’t watched or read him enough to go either way. But as I have looked around the web at different weight loss plans, what he had to say contained a lot of common sense, so I wanted to give this book a try.

To Fly Again by Gracia Burnham. I read her book In the Presence of My Enemies, about the year she and her husband spent in captivity, during last fall’s reading challenge.

Finding Your Path by Mitch Raymer, which is described as “Christ-Centered Tools To Help You Get A Job, Find Joy In Your Work And Achieve Success.” I met Mitch and his wife, DK, through the Thursday Thirteen meme and I was impressed with Mitch’s Christ-centered and common sense quotations and principles. On one TT he offered his book to the first thirteen people who signed up for it, and I was one. 🙂 I wanted it mainly for my son who is graduated from college and deciding on the next step in life. All Mitch asked for in return was an e-mail telling what we thought, and I am ashamed to say I haven’t done that yet. Sorry, Mitch! I had given it to my son, but I will sneak it off his desk and read it and get back to you.

True Light by Terri Blackstock. This one isn’t due to be released until June 15, but I might squeak it in. 🙂 It’s the third in the Restoration series in which there what appears to be a sudden global loss of power. The books focus mainly on one family’s coping with the crisis. I didn’t think I would like the storyline, but I do like Terri Blackstock, so I gave it a chance. The hard thing about it is my aversion to thinking about such a crisis — I’m afraid I like my creature comforts too much — I can see my response mirrored in that of some of the characters.

From Cannibalism to Christianity by Margaret Stringer. Margaret is a missionary our church supports, “retired” from the field but still plenty active.

I put these all on a list near the bottom of my side bar and will crossing them off there as I go complete them.

I have an ongoing list of “books I want to read” (which I am sure I will add to as I read others’ lists) from which I can choose more books to read if I get through all of these.

These are books that I will be reading through the year, as they are laid out in weekly or daily sections:

Queen of the Castle: 52 Weeks of Encouragement for the Uninspired, Domestically Challenged or Just Plain Tired Homemaker by Lynn Bowen Walker. I am enjoying this a lot so far — I had seen it recommended on a couple of blogs during the fall challenge last year. Just to give you some advance notice, I’ll be having a Q&A session with the author, Lynn Bowen Walker, here May 2.

Daily Light on the Daily Path compiled by the Samuel Bagster family. I have read this many years over — always a blessing.

Wonderful Words by Stewart Custer. “OK” so far.

And, of course, the Bible, best book ever.

I just finished Jane Eyre a week or two ago, but hadn’t had a chance to comment on it yet.

It was one of those classics I meant to get to “some time,” but my interest was peaked when I saw the Masterpiece Theater production of it which aired on PBS in January. It showed a lot of humorous exchanges between Mr. Rochester and Jane. I was surprised — I had thought Mr. Rochester was a moody, brooding sort of fellow. I had never read the book, but I had some dim memory of the story line (which I later remembered came from seeing an old film with a young Elizabeth Taylor as Helen, Jane’s friend at the orphanage) even before seeing a version with Ciaran Hinds as Mr. Rochester several years ago. I had really enjoyed that version, but with so many differences between that production and this new one, and those intriguing humorous exchanges in this newer production, that I put Jane Eyre on my winter reading list.

For those who don’t know (warning: if you have never read or seen Jane Eyre and don’t want any “spoilers,” you’d better skip this paragraph), Jane’s parents die when she is a young girl and she is sent to live with an uncle. The uncle then also passes away while she is still young and makes his wife promise, when he is on his death bed, that she will take care of Jane. His wife does not like Jane, makes her feel an obvious outsider from the rest of the family, and “takes care of her” only in the sense of providing food, clothing,, and a place to stay. Things come to a head there (I’ll leave some surprises) and Jane is sent to a boarding school with a strict, tyrannical headmaster. When she grows older she becomes a teacher at the school until she advertises for an outside position. She’s hired to be a governess by a Mrs. Fairfax for a young French girl named Adele. Jane later learns that Adele is the ward of an enigmatic Mr. Rochester. Jane is poor and is not beautiful and tends to speak her mind, all of which sets her outside the upper social circles of the time. But somehow Mr. Rochester, who is also said to be not handsome, likes the way she answers him, and they begin to have many conversations, which lead to Jane having a “crush” on her employer. She knows it is an impossible situation because of their different stations in life, which seems further confirmed by his seeming impending engagement to Blanche Ingram, a wealthy socialite, but sometimes she thinks she sees interest on his part as well. She does nothing to further his interest — she is not the type to flirt and would not in her circumstances anyway. Yet the undercurrent of interest does blossom into a romance: they are to be married until it is revealed that Mr. Rochester has a dark secret (I’ll leave that secret, too, for those who haven’t read it). Jane flees and eventually finds the Rivers family, a brother and two sisters, who take her in. St. John Rivers is single and headed for the mission field and eventually becomes convinced that Jane would make an excellent wife for him on the field, not because he loves her, but because of her temperament and work ethic. She almost does, but has a strong urging to see Mr. Rochester again.

I haven’t read much about the background of the Brontes or the reception of this book when it was published. I do wonder if Mr. Rochester’s scandalous past  caused a stir — let me hasten to say, though, that there are no explicit scenes in the book. His past is mentioned and explained a bit, but we’re spared the intricate details (thankfully — a tale like this in the hands of a modern author would likely be one I couldn’t read). I also wonder what the 1840s audience thought of Jane’s outspokenness and independence: if it was accepted, I wonder if it was because of Jane’s circumstances and if it would not have been accepted if she had come from a upper-class well-established family.

I don’t know whether Charlotte Bronte was a Christian:  I know she was in the world’s sense of the word, as meaning not-Buddhist or something else, but I don’t know if she was in the born-again sense. I did read somewhere that she was a minister’s daughter. But I was pleased to find many Biblical allusions and principles throughout the book, even the need for repentance and Jane’s telling Mr. Rochester he needed to find rest for his soul in the Lord. I didn’t read any reviews or commentaries of this book except just to skim some when I was looking for a short summary (I had planned to link to one instead of writing my own, but could only find longer ones), but one reviewer mentioned Jane’s aversion to religion. I didn’t find that at all in the book, unless the reviewer meant the type of religion modeled by Mr. Brocklehurst, the headmaster. There was one passage in particular that I thought was an excellent illustration of having principles in place ahead of time to avoid temptation when you can’t think clearly. Here Jane has learned Mr. Rochester’s secret and determined she must leave: he argues with her to stay, on terms that she knows she cannot yield to. She thinks to herself:

…while he spoke my very conscience and reason turned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him. They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly. “Oh, comply!” it said. “Think of his misery, think of his danger– look at his state when left alone; remember his headlong nature; consider the recklessness following on despair — soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?”

Still indomitable was the reply — “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God, sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad — as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigor: stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth — so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane — quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.”

And yes, there were many humorous interchanges between Jane and Mr. Rochester. I was glad to see the book wasn’t all darkness and brooding.  Here is one, in one of the first couple of meetings between Jane and Mr. Rochester. He is looking at some of her drawings and says,

“I perceive these pictures were done by one hand: was that hand yours?”

“Yes.”

“And when did you find time to do them? They have taken much time, and some thought.”

“I did them in the last two vacations I spent at Lowood, when I had no other occupation.”

“Where did you get your copies.”

“Out of my head.”

“That head I now see on your shoulders?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Has it other furniture of the same kind within?”

All in all I did like the book very much. The recent PBS production is much truer to the book, but there are a few moments that I didn’t appreciate — a couple of cases of double entendre and an attempt to explain some things with the darker side of the supernatural that were not in the book (I’m being purposefully vague there so as not to draw the attention of search engines here by those terms.)

One last quote I especially liked had to do with Jane’s and Mr. Rochester’s relationship:

 To be together is for us to be at once as free as solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking.

Katrina at Callapidder Days is hosting a Spring Reading Challenge from March 21 (first day of spring) to June 21, similar to the Fall Reading Challenge we did last fall. The details are here. I so enjoyed the fall challenge that I did my own winter reading list. I hope to have it finished by the spring challenge — if not, I’ll just roll the ones I haven’t finished onto the new list. 😀 That’s the nice things about this: there’s no pressure. It’s just a goal to aim at. I don’t think I read more with the challenge, because I am always reading anyway, but I found it was a good way to get some of those books I kept meaning to get to “some day” actually checked out of the library and read.

Updated: I decided to remove the book meme. The more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable I was with having some of those selections listed here.

I began a winter reading list in early January after the manner of the Fall Reading Challenge many of us did. I’ve had it in my sidebar but wanted to post it here so I could refer back to it as I completed books and commented on them. As I perused everyone’s lists from the challenge in the fall, I made a list of other books I want to read, so I have plenty of ideas if I get through these! 🙂

Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis (In progress)

White Chocolate Moments by Lori Wick (Completed)

Ever After by Karen Kingsbury (Completed)

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (In progress)

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

The Reptile Room (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 2) by Lemony Snicket

Through the year (These are laid out in weekly or daily sections):

Queen of the Castle: 52 Weeks of Encouragement for the Uninspired, Domestically Challenged or Just Plain Tired Homemaker by Lynn Bowen Walker

Daily Light on the Daily Path compiled by the Samuel Bagster family

Wonderful Words by Stewart Custer

And, of course, the Bible.

I finished White Chocolate Moments by Lori Wick first. Reading Lori Wick feels like visiting an old friend to me. I think I have read all of her books and really enjoy them. I wouldn’t agree necessarily with every little point, but, then, that’s true of anyone I suppose. She has written many historical novels and a few contemporary ones: this is one of the latter. I thought the name of the main character, Arcineh, was kind of odd, and there was no explanation as to how her parents came up with that name. Her nickname is Arci, and throughout the book people hear it and mistake it for Darcy — that gets a little tedious sometimes. Arcineh’s parents are killed in a car accident when she is about 11, and she goes to live with her grandfather. Though they get along wonderfully, his “favorite” granddaughter has been Arcineh’s cousin, and that causes conflict later on. Arcineh is very non-competitive (I am, too, and it was interesting reading about someone else like that), and when things come to a crisis, she leaves. The rest of the books follows her journey to acceptance, to love, and to faith.

I also finished Karen Kingsbury’s book Ever After, just yesterday. It is a sequel to Even Now, which told the story of a young couple who were separated by their parents when the girl, Lauren, becomes pregnant. After Lauren gives birth her baby daughter, Emily, becomes ill, and through a series of misunderstandings, Lauren believes she is dead. She leaves and is estranged from her family and can’t find her boyfriend, Shane. She goes to college, becomes very liberal in her views, and eventually becomes a reporter for Time magazine on the front lines in Afghanistan, opposed to war. Shane, meanwhile, becomes a career soldier. Emily grows up, eventually finds her parents, and tries to reunite them. In this sequel, Shane and Lauren love each other as much as ever, but their differences are so great that they are not sure if they can make it. Emily goes to college, begins a job, and meets a young man, also a soldier, due for a second tour in Iraq. I’ll leave it there so as not to spoil it for anyone else who might like to read it. In many ways it is a predictable plot (to me, anyway), and Karen Kingsbury tends to overplay the emotional scenes, and I don’t think anyone opposed to the war in Iraq would be swayed by reading this. But she does make some very good points about the war effort, and this tribute to those who defend freedom is heartfelt. So even with those negatives, yes, I’d recommend the book.

I’m almost done with Mere Christianity. It is actually very easy to read, but I don’t normally gravitate toward non-fiction. I do want to comment more on it when I finish, but I would recommend it.