Books like Home to Harmony

This is one of those books I'd like to give a 3.5It is, as the book jacket indicates, a cross between Jan Karon's "Mitford" series and Garrison Keillor's "Lake Woebegone" tales - a genre I've tentatively decided to call "Nostalgic Pastoral Fiction," with "Pastoral" used in its older sense rather than its religious one. (Although in this case it would work either way.) In "Harmony," each chapter is a loosely connected anecdote from the life of one of the denizens of the small Mid-Western town of Harmony, its Friends Meeting, or said Meeting's pastor (who is also the narrator.) Each chapter concludes with a pithy sermonette.The pastor/narrator does not suffer from an excess of the wisdom or even piety that so infects Father Tim of the Mitford series. This renders him rather less lovable to me, but perhaps more realistic all the same. The townfolk were also a mixed bag of semi-saintly and sanctimonious. And mostly the seromonettes seemed theologically sound and even profound at times. Still, born and raised in a Friends (Quaker) church, many of the Meeting-related anecdotes had an air of familiarity for me - but not the happy, nostalgic sort. More the teeth-gritting "boy am I glad my current church doesn't operate that way because I would go stark raving mad, run screaming, and seriously contemplate dropping out forever" sort. I wanted to punch a couple of the idiotic members and then shake the pastor by the neck and demand he justify why he's put up with their nonsense for so long. When he finally Did discipline one of them I gave a little mental cheer but still found it too little, too late. Which makes me wonder why I rate it as high as I do. I am a sci-fi, historical fiction, and to a lesser extent suspense and political thriller fan - genres about as far from nostalgic fiction as one can get. By all rights I ought to hate this book, just like I ought to hate Mitford. But I savored each entry in the former series. Harmony, like Mitford, is simple, flavorful, and easily digested - like a nice grilled cheese sandwich with a bowl of tomato soup after too many days of spicy, complicated meals. So while I half-fear that I am praising a Thomas Kincaid painting while rejecting the Rembrandt for being too dark and complicated, I will Probably seek out the rest of this series - at least as a palate cleanser.