This is the perfect pairing of two books. Fair Sunshine is the story of 13 Scottish Covenanters, men and women who died with uncommon grace, people who boldly articulated their faith up to the moment the noose was put around their neck.  Samuel Rutherford, most famous as the author of Lex Rex, was a pastor in prison. Many of the recipients of the Letters of Samuel Rutherford are the subjects of chapters in Fair Sunshine. 

Reading these books is like looking at aliens who are somehow familiar.  The strength, the clarity, the courage they displayed is beyond the beyonds.  Who were these people?  What kind of love is that? One can only wonder. 

My breath is caught reading about the two Margarets, sentenced to death by drowning.  One was 70, one was 18.  They were tied to stakes where the tide would eventually cover their heads.  The older was placed so she would be submerged first. 

Astonishing words from an 18 year old girl. 

I'll be quoting more from these books...

1. We must distinguish beauty from ugliness, goodness from mediocrity, truth from cleverly couched lies.  I tend to shy from evaluation - that's my husband's department - but nurturing an appetite involves evaluation all the day long.  It is good to ask

Roland Barthes' first three sentences entrapped me.  Oh, how I know those little touches of solitude!

This book is one learned man's subjective approach to understanding why certain photographs grab him and others don't. He employs two Latin words: studium and punctum.  The studium is a general, enthusiastic commitment.  It is the part of the photograph that is as it should be, i.e. background, lighting, composition.  The punctum is the detail that breaks the studium: a wound, a prick, a sting, a speck, a cut, a little hole.   This is the "something" which grabs your eye, your mind or your emotion.  He writes as a philosopher, which is to say, he writes about a photograph as a death, a madness, a myth, and a reality. He even writes "Photography has something to do with resurrection." More quotes:

In a poignant and personal passage, Barthes writes about looking for
his mother's essence in photographs after her death and finding her
(There she is!) in a photograph taken in 1898 when she was five years
old.  He concludes that capturing the air of a face (we might call it the soulfulness of a person), although recognizable is unanalyzable.  Barthes died shortly after he wrote this book in 1980. 

If you are a word-bird like me, see if you are familiar with any of these additions to my vocabulary.  Since the book is translated from French, I don't know how if these words are from the author or the translator.

For the one person I haven't lost (those little touches of solitude!), if you are still interested awake, you can read a seven page excerpt of the book here.

Susan Allen Toth is just that friend, and she has written three books full of delightful narrative.  My Love Affair with England (1992) is a comfortable quilt pieced together from her multiple trips as a student, teacher, bride and  tourist.  In England As You Like It (1995) (my favorite of the three) Toth fleshes out her travel philosophy, shares more journeys and includes tons of practical wisdom such as the best souvenirs for friends at home.  With England for All Seasons (1997) Toth persuades you that England rewards those who travel outside the high season.  In a serendipitous chapter, she describes flying into Glasgow and driving to the Isle of Mull which is our exact itinerary (although we're continuing on to Iona).

Susan writes about Susan's (and James' her husband) loves: above all walking and gardens.  In the same way that Wodehouse is wonderful, but too much Wodehouse in one sitting can be wearisome, all the walking was a bit much.  This is easily fixed by reading these books spaced between others on your pile.

Besides being an Anglophile, Susan is a bibliophile.  Literary referrences abound, especially in the vignettes about specific regions; I could abide in those abounding bookish notes.  Toth inspired me to design our trip more according to our interests and less from the dictates of the guidebooks.  Favorite bits from these lovely books:                

In the first Father Tim book, our dear retired Anglican priest goes back to his home town in Mississippi and faces some of the demons from his earlier life.  We already know from the Mitford books that Father Tim's relationship with his father was problematic, at best.  Father Tim had never been back since the death of his mother, effectively ditching all the relationships which were established in his youth.  One by one he searches out the people whose influence had molded his life. 

I loved the cadences of Timothy Cavanaugh's conversations with strangers and with old friends.  Karon captured the charm, the contrariness and the cheesiness of her Southern clerks, old ladies and ground hog hunters. 

Father Tim comes face to face with two women with the same first name; both women wronged Tim in some way; both women faced a similar life-shaking situation.  I found one encounter satisfying, but the other left me hollow.  I guess that is because one woman acknowledged her wrong and asked, point blank, for forgiveness while the other dropped a bombshell with precious little explanation, then proceeded to ask for more sacrifice on Tim's part.  The breach in their former relationship was glossed over.  Even as I continue to ponder, I see huge differences in the two women's circumstances; perhaps silence was the wisest and most discreet response for the second woman.

Life is complex; things don't always happen in the clean and tidy way of our dreams.  Which leads me to my last critique.  Karon cleaned up all of Father Tim's loose ends in a way I found facile and unbelievable.  I wish she had left some dangling threads.  It's too neat ending felt formulaic. 

Scott Sower's performance reading this book is two notches above excellent. His reading rivals Sissy Spacek's reading of To Kill a Mockingbird for the best audio book I've heard.  For its flaws, it is still a lovely, lovely book.  My youngest son is part Samwise Gamgee, part Jeeves, and part Father Tim.  I love the Father Tim in him, because I simply love Father Tim.  In a year or two (when prices have dropped) I'll pick up Home to Holly Springs in print and read through it.  I anticipate listening to it more than once. 

If your library carries this, I highly recommend it.  If you enjoy fiction about clerics, check out Anthony Trollope's Barset Chronicles, begininning with The Warden.