Guest Post for the Little House Blog Party

I've got a guest post up today on Ashley's blog, A to Z.  It's my review of the Little House Cookbook by Barbara M. Walker, and you can read it here.  Ashley asked me to write up the post as part of her Little House Blog Party that's running all this week, and I was happy to be able to contribute :-)  I've loved the Little House books for as long as I can remember! 

If you haven't checked out the blog party yet, please do so!  The kick-off post is here, which includes a giveaway and a tag to copy and fill out.  I posted my tag answers here on my other blog :-)

"Lizzy & Jane" by Katherine Reay

Um, yes.  Two reviews of Katherine Reay books in just over a week.  Because I got this from the library last Saturday and began devouring it immediately.  And I do mean "devouring" -- this book's protag, Elizabeth/Lizzy, is a chef.  And while I like learning about interior decorating now and then, which featured prominently in The Bronte Plot, I love to cook and adore baking, so that's one reason I liked this book even better than that one.

Now, I don't consider myself a "foodie" because I'm not into gourmet food, I don't grind my own herbs and spices (unless I've grown them myself), and I don't make up my own recipes very often.  But I do have a recipe blog, and I truly enjoy preparing and eating food.  Reading this book made me hungry.

So anyway, about this book.  Lizzy is a chef and runs an expensive restaurant in New York City.  But she's been thrown off her groove lately because her sister Jane has cancer.  Their mom died of cancer, so she's pretty freaked about this.  She takes a sort of stress break from work and flies to Seattle to see her dad and sister, with whom she doesn't have exactly a close and warm and loving relationship.  And then she meets a guy, and she cooks a lot of food, and she works through her relationship problems with her sister and figures out stuff about her past and gets to know her niece and nephew and brother-in-law better, and that all sounds kind of boring and/or depressing, but it's not.  It's beautiful.  I liked The Bronte Plot, but I loved Lizzy & Jane.  

I also cried a lot over it, but in a good way, if that makes any sense.  Not happy crying, but more "what if it was me facing the potential of leaving her kids for good."  I'm going to be flying most of the way across the country without my kids this summer, leaving them for almost a week for the first time ever (well, we left 2 of them at Grandpa and Grammy's overnight once...) and I'm kind of wigging out over the idea that what if I died on that trip and they had to live the rest of their lives without me?  Something I'm doing a lot of praying about already, even though my trip is six months away.  So somehow, reading this book helped me kind of figure out exactly what was concerning me the most about that impending trip and know better how to pray about it.

Anyway, good book.  Also, in case you can't tell by now, this is not a retelling of Pride and Prejudice.  Jane Austen's books do figure into the story, but if you haven't read them, you'll still enjoy this book.  If you have read them, you'll get what the characters are talking about when they discuss the books, but it's not a prerequisite.

One thing did bug me about this, though.  It's supposedly a work of Christian fiction, and it does contain more discussions of God and living a godly life than The Bronte Plot did.  A Bible verse reference here and there.  But they were all about how God makes our lives better or helps us endure things.  Nothing about Jesus.  No law, no Gospel.  Nobody in this book ever goes to church.  Nobody says, "Hey, you know, because we're forgiven by God for our sins, we need to go forgive other people too.  Maybe you should think about that."  It's nominal Christianity only, vague and more Deistic than anything, and that bugged me.  

I'm not a fan of Christian fiction that has sermons sandwiched into every third chapter, an obligatory conversion story line, and a required quotient of Jesus references.  But if characters are supposed to be Christians, I expect them to act more like God truly matters in their lives.  "By your fruits, you will know them" (Matthew 7:16), in other words.  However, if you don't think of this as "Christian fiction" and instead "fiction that Christians would be comfortable reading," then it works well.

Particularly Good Bits:

Without ever losing sight or diminishing Anne's reality and social limitations, Austen gave her and all of us the soft, steady hope of second chances, happiness, true love, and the promise that life might be better close to thirty than it was at eighteen (p. 241).

If This Was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for a brief discussion between sisters about how cancer affects your hormones and sex life.  It's not salacious, it's matter-of-fact and minor, but it's there.

Shane Read-Along: Chapter 10

This chapter is a continuation of the scene from chapter 9, so I'm going to go ahead and post them back-to-back.

You know one of the coolest things about being friends with a guy like Joe Starrett?  If you need him to, he can just carry you around.  He can pick you up and hold your unconscious body in his arms for a bit while he argues with the saloon owner over who's going to pay for all the damage you and a bunch of yahoos just caused, and think nothing of the fact that he's standing there holding a full-grown man.  And then carry you out to his wagon and heft you up on the seat.  Not load you in the wagon bed, which would be way easier, but actually put you way up on the seat.

I don't think they make men like Joe Starrett very often.

And then later on, when his wife as much as admits that she's got feelings for you, instead of going out to the barn and shooting you, he'll say you're a better man than him and then hug his wife.

You ask me, it's Joe Starrett who needs the hug.  Lots of hugs.

Favorite Lines:

The one man in our valley, the one man, I believe, in all the world whose help he would take, not to whom he would turn but whose help he would take, was there and ready.  Father stepped to meet him and put out a big arm reaching for his shoulders.  "All right, Joe," Shane said, so softly I doubt whether the others in the room heard.  His eyes closed and he leaned against father's arm, his body relaxing and his head dropping sideways.  Father bent and fitted his other arm under Shane's knees and picked him up like he did me when I stayed up too late and got all drowsy and had to be carried to bed (p. 77).

She always knew when to talk and when not to talk, and she said no word while we watched father lift Shane to the wagon seat, climb beside him, hoist him to sitting position with one arm around him and take the reins in the other hand (p. 78).


Possible Discussion Questions:

Joe says he's known that Marian is growing attached to Shane.  Why do you think he seems okay with this?  

What's your reaction to the whole confusing situation?  What would you do if you were in Joe's place?  In Marian's?  In Shane's?

Shane Read-Along: Chapter 9

Shane fights dirty.

And I love him for it.

I'm not sure what that says about me, but it's probably nothing good.  Anyway, I don't know about you, but I read this chapter twice through all in one lump this afternoon.

"'So you have it all planned,' Shane said softly" (p. 71).  Did you ever hear of a neater way of thumbing your nose at someone while sounding perfectly polite?  Oh, that line thrills me.  I'm getting goosebumps again just remembering it.  

And then the fight begins, and what a glorious fight it is!  Shane using his smarts and experience and agility against their brute strength, one man holding his own against five for quite some time.  And yes, he fights dirty.  Knee to the groin here, glass of whiskey to the eyes there, anything he needs to do.  It's that willingness to wade in with no holds barred that makes me love Shane so much in this fight -- he keeps nothing back.

But even wonderful, mythical, heroic Shane can't win against five men who also are willing to brawl however necessary.  And just in time, in comes our other hero.  Joe "was past anger.  He was filled with a fury that was shaking him almost beyond endurance" (p. 73).  And here's why I love that they cast Van Heflin in that role for the movie version.  Because he is a big, barrel-chested man, and he so completely suits this moment of righteous fury where he grabs a man and picks him up over his head and throws him like a straw bale.  

Alan Ladd as Shane is small and lithe and quick, just like in the book, and look at that photo above, how Van Heflin towers over him like the mountains behind them, solid and weathered and formidable.  My husband (Cowboy) is built a lot like Van Heflin -- broad shoulders, barrel chest, brawny arms, 5'11", big head... anyway, he's as gentle and kind as can be, but I have no doubt (having seen him lifting weights in our basement) that if he wanted to, he would be "big and terrible" like Joe Starrett, could pick up a man and throw him like that.  

Okay, enough sappy musing about my husband.  Let's just say that if I was Marian, and Cowboy was Joe, my eyes would have been glowing too.


Favorite Lines:

He picked up his drink and savored it, one elbow on the bar, not shoving himself forward into the room's companionship and not withdrawing either, just ready to be friendly if anyone wanted that and unfriendly if anyone wanted that too (p. 69).

He was somehow happy, not in the pleased and laughing way, but happy that the waiting was over and what had been ahead was here and seen and realized and he was ready for it (p. 70).

"Bobby boy, would you have me run away?" (p. 70).

I don't really have any discussion questions today.  Unless you want to speculate as to why a meek, mild, quiet woman like me is so attracted to violent stories...

"Becoming Jane Eyre" by Sheila Kohler

I've had this for a couple years now, but never got around to reading it until now.  (I should post a picture of my TBR bookcase so you can see just what I'm up against.)  I decided the time had finally come, as I'm gearing up for my Jane Eyre read-along that starts in May.  The back cover said it was a sort of fictional biography, which I liked the sound of, as I don't know much about Charlotte Bronte herself, I must admit.

Becoming Jane Eyre traces Charlotte's writing of her famous novel, her efforts to publish it, and how its success changed her life.  It also shows Emily and Anne publishing their first novels before her, only to be eclipsed by their sister's success.  Their father's health problems and their brother's mental disturbances also play significant roles.

I really wanted to like this book, but alas, I didn't.  It was well-written, thought-provoking, insightful, and intelligent.  I feel now as if I knew a good bit of what life was like for Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte.  I sympathize with them greatly.  Kohler did a masterful job of weaving the Bronte novels in with their lives, showing how reality influenced story for them, and vice versa.  It was quite fascinating, really.

But I didn't like it solely because there was the occasional sordid passage that would sort of pop up unannounced, though none of them involved the sisters themselves.  These were entirely unnecessary, jarring, and made me blush.  So now you know.

However!  Sheila Kohler did make one observation that I loved, and I'm hoping I remember to bring it up again during the JE read-along.  Here it is:

Jane must choose between love without marriage or marriage without love (p. 147).

Not the entire point of the novel, but for part of it, that's huge.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  R for explicit sexual material, and alcohol and drug use.

Top Ten Tuesday: Historically Speaking

This week's prompt, from The Broke and the Bookish, is Top Ten Historical Settings You Love.

I love books set in the past, as you know by now.  Whether they were written long ago, or are what I consider to be "historical fiction" (set in a time prior to the age the author lived in), I love learning about how life was different in time gone by, and how it was also the same as what we have today.  People haven't changed much since the fall into sin, and that saying that "the more things change, the more they stay the same" definitely feels true when I'm reading historical fiction.

Anyway, here are the settings I'm most drawn to, in chronological order:

4000 BC-100 AD -- Biblical times.  I don't read a lot of fiction set then, though I do really love The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare and Ben-Hur:  A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace.  But I do read quite a bit of nonfiction about it -- right now, I'm working my way through When Christ Walked Among Us by James F. Pope.

500-1500 -- Middle Ages.  Basically anything involving Robin Hood, King Arthur, knights and ladies and castles.  The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle and so on.

1600s -- Elizabethan England.  If it involves Shakespeare, I'm interested.

1700s -- American Colonial Era and Revolution.  The Felicity books, The Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter, The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare, Sarah Bishop by Scott O'Dell, anything involving Daniel Boone.

1800s -- Napoleonic Wars, British Regency, American frontier life.  Jane Austen, Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series.  Streams to the River, Rivers to the Sea by Scott O'Dell, anything about Davy Crockett and Kit Carson.

1860s -- American Civil War.  Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, books by Shelby Foote, memoirs of soldiers, etc.

1870s-1900 -- American Old West.  My favorite era for movies, and the one I love writing in the most.  I'm very fond of Zane Grey, getting fonder of Louis L'Amour, and want to try out Max Brand.

1900s -- Victorian Era Britain.  I love Sherlock Holmes!

1920s -- the Jazz Age.  I love Fitzgerald and Hemingway, books by them or about them.  Especially The Sun Also Rises and A Moveable Feast by Hemingway, and Tales of the Jazz Age and Flappers and Philosophers by Fitzgerald.  

1940s -- WWII.  Basically, anything set during WWII grabs my attention.  Sarah Sundin, Raymond Chandler, anything historical about WWII.  The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan, Shadows Over Stonewycke by Michael Phillips and Judith Pella, anything by Bill Mauldin or Ernie Pyle.


That's only 9, but that's all I've got :-)

EDIT:  No, it's not!  I realized that I was thinking mostly about fiction, but I do read non-fiction (and a bit of fiction) about Biblical times, so I'm adding that to the top of this list.

Shane Read-Along: Chapter 8

This chapter is like that too-still, calm feeling the world gets before a really bad storm hits.  The storm clouds have been gathering a while, and you've maybe had a bit of rain and some wind already, but suddenly the leaves on the trees don't even flicker, and you know something awful is coming -- you just stand there, watching the sky to see if it's changing color, if you need to head for shelter.  Somehow, you begin to wish it would go ahead and just storm already.  (Okay, that's what you do if you live where tornadoes exist, anyway.)

And besides wanting things to go ahead and just happen, I'm feeling pretty sad for Shane.  He was feeling comfortable and maybe even happy, and now that's all ruined.  Grrrrrrr.  Makes me want to go punch a few bad guys myself.  

I love that Marian has the courage to ask him to stay, though, don't you?  She knows they need him, and she knows that she's manipulating him a bit by asking with Joe not around... but she knows he knows he's being manipulated, so it's all kind of okay somehow.  At least, that's how I feel.  You?

Favorite Lines:

"A man can keep his self-respect without having to cram it down another man's throat" (p. 64).

Possible Discussion Questions:  What do you think about Shane calling Marian Starrett by her first name?  What does it say about how he fits into their lives?