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.)