So out of all those books (see last post), I must have some opinions, right? Matter of fact, I do.
CS Lewis' George MacDonald was glorious. It's one of the very few books I have ever managed to read slowly because I was constantly setting it down to ponder more deeply on a new insight. I need to read this again and again. In the introduction, Lewis writes "From his own father, he said, he first learned that Fatherhood must be at the core of the universe. He was thus prepared in an unusual way to teach that religion in which the relation of Father and Son is of all relations the most central." In that regard MacDonald said:
Hugh Nibley's An Approach to the Book of Mormon was the priesthood manual back in 1957ish, with a foreword by Joseph Fielding Smith saying that every member of the church needs to study this book. That said, it's a heavily scholarly book that isn't for everyone and Nibley is not particularly pithy, succinct or quotable. I'm very glad I read it. I have come to understand Lehi and Nephi and their surroundings much better because of it. It has a world of evidences that support the authenticity of the Book of Mormon - things that simply were not known in the Western world in Joseph Smith's day, that he could not possibly have known if he were inventing a Book of Mormon, but that are exactly right and fitting if indeed this book was started by a family fleeing Jerusalem and the Arab world around 600bc. I recommend it highly, but be prepared for a slog.
The Continuous Atonement is better than the Continuous Conversion (I marked more stuff), but get Conversion anyway solely for chapter 8 on temple worship. Both books are there to help people who are ready to give up hope because they keep on sinning and falling short despite their best efforts. Brad Wilcox is particularly good at reworded one-liners: He reassures us that "Christ doesn't require us to fit any mold before He is willing to mold us" and that "Heaven is not a prize for the perfect, but the future home of all who are willing to be perfected", but he also warns against those who are "not trying to abandon sin and become comfortable with God. Rather they are trying to abandon God and become comfortable with sin." "True faith is not just knowing God can, but knowing why sometimes He doesn't. ... True faith is not just receiving your answer, but accepting His."
Revelations in Context is the new church manual to accompany this year's study of church history. It is remarkably well done, particularly the later chapters. I highly recommend it.
Pres. Monson's biography is unusual. The first part, before he became an apostle, really was a biography about Tommy in that it told about his family and background and showed him growing and developing. But - given that so much of his life has been spent in serving one person here and another person there, and that so many of his teachings have been done through examples of the people he has met and served, - most of his biography after becoming an apostle is a review of stories of people he met and loved (and whom did he meet that he didn't love?) rather than continuing to be about him and his growth, his family, or what he learned about the doctrine and the gospel during those 50 years, and so on.
One thing that makes the Teachings of Pres. Monson interesting is that it over-samples his earlier teachings from the 60s and 70s that have gotten less replay since then. Here is one from 1970: "The happy life is not ushered in at any age to the sound of drums and trumpets. It grows upon us year by year, little by little, until at last we realize that we have it. It is achieved in individuals, not by flights to the Moon or Mars, but by a body of work done so well that we can lift our heads with assurance and look the world in the eye. Of this be sure: You do not find the happy life - you make it."
I was surprised to be disappointed in 400 Questions About the Life and Times of Jesus Christ. It is not a doctrinal book. It is not about teachings. It is about the context surrounding what is going on and aimed at a scholarly level. Many of the questions I felt came about because she learned an interesting factoid while looking for something else and made up a question to give her an excuse to mention it. I highlighted much less than I expected to because I normally really enjoy what Susan Easton Black does. In Their Own Words is a set of biographies of the presidents of the church as told by their own stories plus one or two other stories told by a family member. A few teachings, but mostly experiences they had. It was both illuminating and inspiring as I am now working more earnestly on my own book about the apostles' teachings following her example.
Since I don't feel like writing a second post just about the fiction I read, I'll quickly mention that Times Like These was great and not at all like the sequel (Chronometer) which I read first. Both are excellent and entertaining, but in completely different styles. I'm going to reread Chronometer now that I know who the main character is and where he came from. The Love Letter Collection has six novellas and the blue ribbon clearly goes to Sarah Eden's A Thousand Words. Just the first chapter was poetic and made me feel like I'd read an entire story - a verbal silhouette. Andrew Rowe is clearly an author I'm going to have to pay a lot more attention to - two outstanding fantasy stories with interesting magic systems and 99% unobjectionable. I'm delighted Amazon pointed me to them.
And this is what I put on Facebook:
CS Lewis' George MacDonald was glorious. It's one of the very few books I have ever managed to read slowly because I was constantly setting it down to ponder more deeply on a new insight. I need to read this again and again. In the introduction, Lewis writes "From his own father, he said, he first learned that Fatherhood must be at the core of the universe. He was thus prepared in an unusual way to teach that religion in which the relation of Father and Son is of all relations the most central." In that regard MacDonald said:
God does not ... make us always feel right, desire good, love purity, aspire after Him and His Will. ... The truth is this: He wants to make us in His own image, choosing the good, refusing the evil. How should He effect this if He were always moving us from within, as He does at divine intervals, toward the beauty of holiness? ... For God made our individuality as well as, and a greater marvel than, our dependence ... [so] that freedom should bind us divinely dearer to Himself, with a new and inscrutable marvel of love; for ... the freer the man, the stronger the bond that binds him to Him who made his freedom.Also: "A man is in bondage to whatever he cannot part with that is less than himself" and "He who seeks the Father more than anything He can give, is likely to have what he asks, for he is not likely to ask amiss."
Hugh Nibley's An Approach to the Book of Mormon was the priesthood manual back in 1957ish, with a foreword by Joseph Fielding Smith saying that every member of the church needs to study this book. That said, it's a heavily scholarly book that isn't for everyone and Nibley is not particularly pithy, succinct or quotable. I'm very glad I read it. I have come to understand Lehi and Nephi and their surroundings much better because of it. It has a world of evidences that support the authenticity of the Book of Mormon - things that simply were not known in the Western world in Joseph Smith's day, that he could not possibly have known if he were inventing a Book of Mormon, but that are exactly right and fitting if indeed this book was started by a family fleeing Jerusalem and the Arab world around 600bc. I recommend it highly, but be prepared for a slog.
The Continuous Atonement is better than the Continuous Conversion (I marked more stuff), but get Conversion anyway solely for chapter 8 on temple worship. Both books are there to help people who are ready to give up hope because they keep on sinning and falling short despite their best efforts. Brad Wilcox is particularly good at reworded one-liners: He reassures us that "Christ doesn't require us to fit any mold before He is willing to mold us" and that "Heaven is not a prize for the perfect, but the future home of all who are willing to be perfected", but he also warns against those who are "not trying to abandon sin and become comfortable with God. Rather they are trying to abandon God and become comfortable with sin." "True faith is not just knowing God can, but knowing why sometimes He doesn't. ... True faith is not just receiving your answer, but accepting His."
Revelations in Context is the new church manual to accompany this year's study of church history. It is remarkably well done, particularly the later chapters. I highly recommend it.
Pres. Monson's biography is unusual. The first part, before he became an apostle, really was a biography about Tommy in that it told about his family and background and showed him growing and developing. But - given that so much of his life has been spent in serving one person here and another person there, and that so many of his teachings have been done through examples of the people he has met and served, - most of his biography after becoming an apostle is a review of stories of people he met and loved (and whom did he meet that he didn't love?) rather than continuing to be about him and his growth, his family, or what he learned about the doctrine and the gospel during those 50 years, and so on.
One thing that makes the Teachings of Pres. Monson interesting is that it over-samples his earlier teachings from the 60s and 70s that have gotten less replay since then. Here is one from 1970: "The happy life is not ushered in at any age to the sound of drums and trumpets. It grows upon us year by year, little by little, until at last we realize that we have it. It is achieved in individuals, not by flights to the Moon or Mars, but by a body of work done so well that we can lift our heads with assurance and look the world in the eye. Of this be sure: You do not find the happy life - you make it."
I was surprised to be disappointed in 400 Questions About the Life and Times of Jesus Christ. It is not a doctrinal book. It is not about teachings. It is about the context surrounding what is going on and aimed at a scholarly level. Many of the questions I felt came about because she learned an interesting factoid while looking for something else and made up a question to give her an excuse to mention it. I highlighted much less than I expected to because I normally really enjoy what Susan Easton Black does. In Their Own Words is a set of biographies of the presidents of the church as told by their own stories plus one or two other stories told by a family member. A few teachings, but mostly experiences they had. It was both illuminating and inspiring as I am now working more earnestly on my own book about the apostles' teachings following her example.
Since I don't feel like writing a second post just about the fiction I read, I'll quickly mention that Times Like These was great and not at all like the sequel (Chronometer) which I read first. Both are excellent and entertaining, but in completely different styles. I'm going to reread Chronometer now that I know who the main character is and where he came from. The Love Letter Collection has six novellas and the blue ribbon clearly goes to Sarah Eden's A Thousand Words. Just the first chapter was poetic and made me feel like I'd read an entire story - a verbal silhouette. Andrew Rowe is clearly an author I'm going to have to pay a lot more attention to - two outstanding fantasy stories with interesting magic systems and 99% unobjectionable. I'm delighted Amazon pointed me to them.
And this is what I put on Facebook:
I read Tevye's original story and, goy that I am, I have to admit I prefer the musical because the romances were much better. Book Tevye does have some excellent one liners that got edited, though, and I'm glad I finally know what happened to the other daughters.
I also read another story by the same guy, Motl the Cantor's son (no relation to Motl the tailor) and enjoyed that one more. Motl's motto is that it's great being an orphan - though he's merely fatherless and his mother and brother are with him the entire story. He has an amazing ability to create gleeful excitement out of the most miserable circumstances. His description of landing at Ellis Island was realistic and enlightening.
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