February-April Pick (Book Drop Day 2025)
Long Book
Welcome to Reading Revisited, a place for friends to enjoy some good old-fashioned book chat while revisiting the truth, beauty, and goodness we’ve found in our favorite books.
This isn’t just a book list, but an invitation into a community. Join us! Here’s what one of our members has to say about how being a part of an in person Reading Revisited Book Club can give you a deeper insight into books…
The different perspectives brought up during the in person discussions are so intriguing to me. I love hearing someone fight for the virtues of an unpopular character or point out how a scene read differently to them. Most of the time I come away with a fresh consideration that leaves me thinking about the book longer than if I had read it independently.
- Sarah Daleki
Hello (from
) and welcome to February!Each winter/Lent we read a long book over the course of a few months. What better time for a long book than when you are stuck inside contemplating life? It can be so hard to pick up a long book when most of our TBR piles are too big already. Checking off a few short books is so satisfying. But, there is something to be said for living in a novel over a longer period of time. Some of my favorite books are long books because I feel like I’ve actually lived with the characters and know them intimately. So we at Reading Revisited are offering you some positive peer pressure to pick up at least one long book each year.
Some previous Long Books have been…1
The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis (RR 2025)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (RR 2022)
East of Eden by John Steinbeck (RR 2024)
Middlemarch by George Eliot (RR 2024)
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens (RR 2023)
For this year’s long book we are reading Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
I (
) am so excited to be one2 of your “guides”3 through a favorite4 book of mine. Kristin is a character that I cannot get out of my head ever since I met her 7 years ago. She is such a passionate melancholic soul that I am afraid you will all know me too well after hearing about how much I relate to her. This book is not simply a love story, but a whole life of a girl who grows into womanhood and then must deal with the consequences of the life she has chosen. You will go through every emotion while reading this book. Some people report being so frustrated with Kristin at times, to which I reply, “Yes! That is exactly how Sigrid Undset wanted you to feel!” But at the same time you will also be encouraged that even the most flawed among us can seek forgiveness and redemption. I cannot wait to introduce you all to my Literary Patron Saint5.Instead of being one long book, this is actually three moderately sized books. So we will be reading one each month. The most cost effective way to acquire the book is in one volume6 so that is my recommendation.
This is a book in translation so there is always a question of if the translation matters. I am a firm believer in the Tiina Nunnally translation7. There is an older translation that seems like it would be more accurate, but though the book is set in Medieval Norway, Sigrid Undset wrote it in a way that was supposed to sound more modern. The Nunnally translation upholds this tenor.
If I have not fully convinced you of this book then please go read this amazing article by Tyler Blanski beautifully titled Kristin Lavransdatter and Your Nordic Medieval Catholic Heart. He will convince you to love Kristin, but is especially helpful if you want to know that it is by no means only a “girl book.”
Here’s what some of our Substack friends have to say about this amazing book…
From
, the much mentioned literary husband ofWhen the history books recount the era of the Reading Revisited Empire©, they will tell that it all began with me. Well, at least Kelsie’s third of the empire. I met her in 2012 in Chicago on the corner of LaSalle Boulevard while with a group headed for Oak Street Beach off of Lake Shore Drive. It is I, reader, who take not a small degree of credit for my wife’s sharp literary industriousness. At least I take credit for the literary part. I got her into Chesterton and Lewis, I told her how much I loved Hawthorne and got her to read him. I told her that she needed to read Homer. And what has happened since? The Reading Revisited Empire© has become the fastest growing literary triumvirate Substack may have ever seen. From that hot day in that cold city on the way to Oak Street Beach a friendship blossomed into a romance, dueled through tragedy, and danced into a comedy. I think right now it might be sailing through the shoals of a contemporary medieval Norwegian epoch; which is where I plan to drop an anchor.
For all the credit I feel like I can take for my wife’s literary project I must admit that it was she who dropped this novel on my bed stand. She must have said something like, “I know it’s about a girl but its medieval Norway and it’s cool. It’s like gritty and inspiring and sad and I just think you would think it was cool.” To which I dutifully began reading. The next time she found me with the book I was weeping. And I’m like a really strong dude who is like really tough!
Sigrid Undset had introduced me to Kristin, the daughter of Lavrans, the wife of Erland and told me the story of her life. That’s it, that’s what Kristin Lavransdatter is about. Kristin’s life from her birth to her death. Oh yah, she’s gonna die at the end.
In Kristin, I peered into the joys, temptations, failures and hopes of a woman who was very much not like me. She’s scrupulous and shy, controlling and nervous. But I knew Kristin in another way. Because woven into Kristin’s story were joys, temptations, failures, and hopes of Erland, her husband without whom this story would not have been written. Kristin’s chaotic spouse is in many ways why this novel is worth reading. Not that Kristin isn’t interesting in and of herself, but the catalyst of her story is Erland. So Undset was introducing me to myself. Which I guess may be the purpose of all great literature.
I imagine that if Erland had written this story he would have thought that he was the reason behind the story. He was the catalyst for the most important moments in Kristin’s life. He was the reason all of the things that happened in the book happened. But of course, Undset wrote this book, not Erland; and she knows better. You see what Undset realizes is that Kristin herself is not the hero even of her own story. The mosaic that Undset lays tells the story not merely of the marks left by the characters upon each other, but the marks made by God upon their souls. Undset’s Kristin reflects this truth in a way no other book I have read does. There are passages of this novel I cannot read again without genuinely weeping (and remember, I’m like really big and strong, I like to hunt!). Undset does all of this by telling us about how Kristin’s vocation, replete with all of the trials of marriage, is the tool by which God is shaping her soul. And mine. Because in Erland Niklausson I met my wife’s husband. I saw why she loved him, what she feared for him, how she cared for and resented him, and how she would get him to heaven and vice versa.
So read this book if you want to get to know Kelsie better! And uhh, ignore all of Erland’s faults cause he’s really cool. But more importantly read this to see how God uses our vocations to shape our souls. And finally, to all the Historians, remind me to tell you about when I thought about starting a podcast and told Kelsie that she should start one about books with her friends.
There is definitely too much to say about Kristin Lavransdatter. It is at once a historical epic precisely depicting medieval life in fourteenth century Norway, but also one of the most authentic and accurate novels detailing what it means to be a woman. The interweaving of culture, societal pressures, the intimate relationships of father, daughter, husband and wife, the experience of motherhood in its fullness from birth to death, the depth of the spiritual life, and the cost of personal sin have never been brought together in a single story to such powerful effect.
The three part saga of Kristin Lavransdatter will at times make you angry, bewildered, frustrated, excited, happy, and then emotionally devastated. It is a complete ride of a reading experience that not only gives you an intense look at a woman’s life in medieval Norway, but a mirror to seeing your own life and experiences. Undset has the incredible ability to weave story and drama around the very human and universal experiences that most of us will have at some point in our lives. But it is the honesty and beauty that Undset brings to these experiences that will surprise you. Kristin Lavransdatter isn’t just a classic that should be read at one point in your life, it is a book that will not only stay with you through characters you come to believe are real and that you know intimately, but it will pierce your soul.
Kristin Lavransdatter Tentative Schedule
Wednesday, January 21st: Intro and Schedule
Wednesday, January 28th: The Wreath (Jorundgaard)
Wednesday, February 4th: The Wreath (The Wreath)
Wednesday February 11th: The Wreath (Lavrans Bjorgulfson)
Wednesday, February 25th: The Wife (The Fruit of Sin)
Thursday, February 26th: The Wreath Virtual Book Club
Wednesday, March 4th: The Wife (Husaby)
Wednesday, March 11th: The Wife (Erlend Nikulausson)
Wednesday, March 25th: The Cross (Honor Among Kin)
Thursday, March 26th: The Wife Virtual Book Club
Wednesday, April 1: The Cross (Debtors)
Wednesday April 8th: The Cross (The Cross)
Thursday, April 23rd: The Cross Virtual Book Club
Next up we will announce our detective book for the year…
Check out the previous Book Drop Day Posts:
Welcome to Book Drop Day
September (Book About Books)
October (American Classic)
November (Gothic Novel)
December Part 1 (Book About Poetry)
December Part 2 (Book of Poetry)
January (Shakespeare)
Until next time, keep revisiting the good books that enrich your life and nourish your soul.
In Case You Missed It:
On the Podcast:
ep. 57: Bookish Bio of Griffin Gooch (a Bookish PhD Student)
ep. 58: One Year Anniversary of the Reading Revisited Podcast
What We’re Reading Now/Next:
June
Trust by Hernan Diaz
July
Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri
August
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
A Few Reminders:
If you are wanting to get in on the in person or virtual community please contact us!
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This book will have a different guide for each month…
and Landon will be joining me and guiding you through the second and third books. I think you’re in for a treat with these two!It is our habit, here at Reading Revisited, to post weekly Read Along Guides. We like to think of these “RAGs” as bookmarked notes, or “just some things I couldn’t help but notice,” which we don’t want to forget to bring up with our friend next time we get together to discuss the book.
Each month has been assigned a “guide” to write these weekly Read Along Guides.
One of our favorite forms of literary torture at Reading Revisited is to make all of our podcast guests rank their Top 5 Books. As gracious hosts, we all put ourselves through this unique challenge as well….but, because we are in charge, we get the privilege of changing our list each year on the End of the Year episode. So the rankings can change, especially for fickle readers like myself. I believe Kristin Lavransdatter is currently #2 on my list.
Whether these exist is up for debate, but please don’t burst my bubble.
And it is a very sturdy paperback for such a long book (clocks in at 1100 pages or so). If you haven’t heard me wax eloquent about Penguin Deluxe Classics then you will just have to trust me.
This is the common opinion, but by no means the only one. Amy Fahey in Women of the Catholic Imagination advocates for the older translation for a few reasons that are also compelling….but when I tried to read that translation I had a hard time getting into the story and that seems to be a common experience. I would read the Nunnally translation first and then when you already love it go back and read the other translation and compare…then please report back and write an essay for Reading Revisited!
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I am very grateful God inspired me to keep putting off Kristin Lavransdattar so I could read it with you guys. Holy procrastination haha
So excited to read this for the first time! I’ve been hearing about it for ages, but I definitely need community to motivate me to tackle huge books haha. So grateful for that community here!