The Work and the Glory 1: A Pillar of Light by Gerald N. Lund

I thought about reading these books as we have been told to ponder and think about the Restoration of the gospel this spring. I know this is a ridiculous way to go about doing this (don't worry, I also have been reading non-fiction about it), but I have read this series several times all the way through and loved it, and kind of like those Living Scriptures scripture videos, I think these books really did contribute to a lot of my knowledge of church history. I mean, the Steeds managed to be present at 99% of the most important happenings in church history. Shocking, really. I didn't really notice before, though, that the writing really isn't that great in this book. Nothing against Brother Lund and all, but it randomly jumps into history textbook mode all of a sudden here and there, with three or four random pages on the history of the Erie Canal or metal plows, and it doesn't feel seamless to the story at all. I was kind of annoyed by that. And there were parts that felt so, so boring--and those were all of the most spiritual parts, which Lund basically took directly from the Pearl of Great Price and just copied and pasted into his text. Obviously it would be hard to write a fictionalized retelling of Joseph talking about his First Vision, but I felt like those parts totally dragged. So I guess that's the problem with me being much more well-read than I was 10-15 years ago when I read these the last time, that I am a lot more picky about the writing... But I still enjoyed the book and still feel invested in the Steed family and how they are doing.