At Home in Mitford

This is an extremely abridged version of this fabulous complete book. There is just one brief mention of the mayor, absolutely no mention of the bakery lady and the orange marmalade cake lady, and not one wit about Father Tim’s hair and Fanny’s attempts to control it!! Missing also are the hilarious exchanges between him and the gang at the Grill, not one single joke from Uncle Billy or outlandish rant from Rose. You hardly get any sense of the frustrations between him and Emma the church secretary and the relationship between he and Cynthia just sails by with hardly any angst at all. I can’t believe Jan Karon agreed to such a short abbreviated reading of her books. I’ve already ordered the second and now I’m not sure I even care to get it. I would love to have the complete audio of these great stories.

Just read the 14th book in the series and decided to go back to the beginning. Over time, Jan Maron’s prose has become more lovely and poignant, and while her books are spiritual they are never Religious. I would love to walk down Main Street in Mitford and say hello to all the wonderful townspeople. Then shop at the Local or Happy Endings. Why in the world has this book never been made as a tv series by PBS? Please read it.

I’m only thirteen years late reviewing this one, but I’d never picked it up until my book club chose it for our December meeting. We’ve been reading a lot of heavy stuff lately, and no one wanted to drag corruption and war and other chaos into our Christmas season, so At Home in Mitford it was.

I enjoyed the book. There’s sweetness and wholesomness to it that fits perfectly with the holidays. Some people may be turned off by the beliefs of many of the characters, but at this point I’ll take tolerant, practicing Christians over most stories on the nightly news.

The characters are well drawn, although I think that there are too many of them. By the last third of the book I was zigzagging around, trying to remember some of the lesser characters that kept popping up. The middle-aged romance was a nice touch, and handled respectfully. The story was engaging, and I particularly liked Karon’s humor. I’ll read more of her books.

Recommended.

Oh my gosh, this book… will restore your faith in humanity. I like to read it once in a while just to clear my mind of all the bad stuff of this world and get lost in a little innocent hamlet with the village parson and the quirky townsfolk. The thing is though, Jan Karon can WRITE. She’s a really amazing writer and never resorts to cheesiness. It is actually very funny, clever and uplifting. Get it, you will love it!

This is really a review of the entire Mitford series which I have re-read too many times to count.

If you’re looking for gentle wit, a bit a sarcasm, likeable characters, lovable dogs (a few cats), great storylines including some nice love stories, as well as great spiritual messages without it becoming preachy, you will love reading about Mitford and Father Tim.

Although Ms. Karon handles some pretty serious issues such as alcholism, depresssion, and child abuse, it’s done without rubbing the reader’s nose in it. There’s no bad language, the strongest exclamation being “blast!”. Her books are G rated when it comes to sex. It’s clear when the characters are physically attracted to each other but you don’t follow them into the bedroom.

As the characters are developed over the course of the series, the books get better and better. In fact, when I first read the last two in the series, I immediately went back to the beginning and read them again because they were so good! 🙂 I don’t think I’ve ever done that before.

And, of course important for me, her books have happy endings.

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