Thursday, November 17, 2016

Book #55: Eve and the Choice Made in Eden by Beverly Campbell

Campbell's main claim in this book is that if we--as in, everyone in the world--had a truer and better understanding of Eve, there wouldn't be as many problems, particularly between men and women. She makes the case that Eve knew exactly what she was doing, that she had been tutored in her role before the earth, and that of course gives a lot of discussion to the LDS doctrine that Eve's choice to partake of the fruit was essential to the entire plan of salvation. I liked how she addressed the apparent contradiction between the two commandments Adam and Eve were given: to multiply and replenish the earth, and to not partake of the fruit of that tree. She talks about how agency has always been the central element of the Plan of Salvation, and Heavenly Father wouldn't force the Fall to happen without someone making that choice, and he wouldn't force us to come to earth in imperfect bodies and in an imperfect world without us, or our predecessors, choosing it. She also makes some very interesting points about how the Garden was a place of preparation, and all of the training that Eve and Adam when through there. I loved reading all of those chapters about Eve and learning more about her life and some very smart guesses as to what may have happened there.

However, I felt like this book could have been way better. There are so many parts of the story that Campbell doesn't discuss fully--like the actual confrontation between Eve and Satan, and Satan himself. I also was a little annoyed with the last third of the book, which was more about "general principles that are good LDS doctrine" and not really related to the story of Eve and Adam, which was the reason why I was interested in this book. I love, love, love Eve's courage and have a strong testimony about her choice in the Garden of Eden. (Eve is actually one of the names I am thinking about for our baby.) And I love pondering their story and gaining strength from her amazing choices.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Book #54: I Am a Mother by Jane Clayson Johnson

I don't remember where I read about this book. I feel like I have read a LOT of books about mothering/parenting lately or in the last few years, and this one didn't stick with me nearly as much as some others. There were some really excellent quotes from General Authorities or well-known authors, though, and those were some of my favorite parts. I also loved Johnson's stories about her personal experiences as a mother and with giving up her fancy career to become a mom (she was a TV anchor until she got married and wanted to have a family). I felt like the majority of what she said in the book was repeating the same theme: You're not JUST a mom, being a mom is worthwhile and awesome even though it's hard! She had a good chapter about not judging other moms too, but most of it ran together and most of what she wrote wasn't distinctive enough or written beautifully enough for me to feel like it was new or for it to really strike me. It was really very short and a quick read, so it was fine--I may not have sat through the entire book if it had been twice as long--but there isn't too much to say about it.

My favorite part was actually a quote by Joseph F. Smith about Eliza R. Snow: "She walked not on the borrowed light of others, but faced the morning unafraid and invincible." I want to get that as commissioned artwork and put it on my wall to look at every day.

Monday, November 7, 2016

Book #53: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by J. K. Rowling

Similar to the Tales of Beedle the Bard, I had never really considered reading this book but then I thought, why not. Especially since the new movie is coming out about this book and I am excited to go watch it. Of course, the movie is named the same thing as this book, but it is about Newt Scamander and his fantastic beasts more than it is about this book, which is the supposed textbook that was assigned to students at Hogwarts. The book is basically a run-through of all the creatures they mention in the book, plus a bunch more--but just a few paragraphs per creature. (I feel like in a regular textbook, there would actually be a chapter about each one, or at least a few pages, but then nobody would really be interested in even skimming this book for fun.) It was a cute read, and there were some interesting parts. It was super short--only about 90 pages--and I feel almost like it's cheating to include it here since it's hardly even a real book. But there you go. I'm glad to at least have seen what it was about. And I am still excited to go see the movie.

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Book #52: For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards by Jen Hatmaker

I have no idea why I heard of Jen Hatmaker but for some reason I am now following her updates on Facebook and I think she is super funny. She's a super-Christian Evangelical lady who lives in Austin and writes a blog. This book is a collection of essays kind of similar to funny memoirs that I have read (it reminded me a lot of the Real Moms book I just read from a Mormon perspective, but this is more Evangelical and talks a lot about JESUS IS AWESOME). I liked reading from this perspective and seeing how this Southern-Christian audience thinks and believes. I think a lot of it--the deep, important theological stuff and love of the Atonement--really lines up with LDS doctrine. Some of the essays were really religious and focused, and others were just about fashion concerns or pop culture references, so it was a good balance. She made me laugh several times and I think I will read one of her other books at least. Although I've said I "read" this book, I was actually listening to it in audiobook format, and that's why I can't be any more specific about what I liked/didn't like about it--I can't go back and refresh my memory about it. I listened to it while I was doing some serious cleaning at our house, and planting our new flowers in our front yard, and it was perfect to listen to while doing those sorts of chores with my hands.

Friday, November 4, 2016

Book #51: Three Tales of My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett

I have looked at a bunch of kids' reading blogs and websites for recommendations on best first chapter books for kids and this was one that was all over the place. Everybody mentioned it on their list somewhere. I had never heard of it! So I ended up actually buying a copy (shocker!) because I figured if it was universally recommended then it would be a good purchase. And it was. I read this with Dane and he didn't want me to stop reading. We actually read this in only two sittings because he kept saying, "Keep going! Don't stop!" I was surprised again how much he absorbed and understood and remembered from the storyline. The story is about a boy (the narrator's father) who goes to a magical island to rescue a dragon he knows is tied up there. Along the way to finding the dragon he runs into a whole menagerie of animals whom he has to distract and surprise using all of the tools he brought along in his backpack in order to keep them from eating him. Like the lion who was upset about his mane being messy, until the boy gave him a comb and some ribbons to braid his mane. It was silly and nonsensical and very cute, and Dane was really, really into it. Definitely a good read. I ended up buying the rest of the trilogy too because he loved it so much. I just need to figure out a good time of day for me to read one chapter a day with him, instead of just occasionally reading 5 chapters at once. I want it to be part of our routine somehow, but it's hard with having to balance reading to Graham as well (who is always, always bringing me books and begging me to read to him).

Edit: We read the rest of the trilogy and really enjoyed the other two books too. Dane REALLY loved reading and listening to the story--he was completely enthralled and had no problem remembering what we'd read previously, even when I thought it would be too complicated. I'm very impressed at his reading comprehension skills, because he definitely doesn't understand most of the bigger words, but he gets the majority of it anyways. It's pretty awesome of him.

Book #50: The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Well, I am cruising to a new low of books read this year with only 50 when hitting November. Oh well! This was another book club read--one that I've already read, but I was looking forward to re-reading. This book is one of the best at pointing out the flaws held by general humanity. Its format is so startling and different from our normal viewpoint (from the perspective of a devil trying to tempt a man) that it makes you think more and become more aware of how you have been tempted and worked on.

I was in charge of the discussion at book club last night and basically I just wanted to read half of the chapters out loud. But these quotes were my favorite parts.

This part was my absolute favorite. It is absolutely terrifying to read, because of how applicable it is to us today--particularly with social media. How many people spend the majority of their time doing exactly what Screwtape is talking about here--scrolling aimlessly looking for nothing to entertain them? And it's so important to remember what he is saying about how this habit isn't just neutral--it is actively bringing us away from God and closer to Satan:
"You will find that anything or nothing is sufficient to attract his wandering attention. You no longer need a good book, which he really likes, to keep him from his prayers or his work or his sleep; a column of advertisements in yesterday's paper will do. You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes but also in conversations with those he cares nothing about, on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here, "I now see that I spent most of my life doing neither what I ought nor what I liked." The Christians describe the Enemy as one "without whom Nothing is strong." And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man's best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.
    You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters , you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters in the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts." (pages 59-61)


This following part also stuck out to me because of how much it applies to me (yikes!):
“Men are not angered by mere misfortune but by misfortune conceived as injury…. Now you will have noticed that nothing throws him into a passion so easily as to find a tract of time which he reckoned on having at his own disposal unexpectedly taken from him. Now he is not yet so uncharitable or slothful that these small demands on his courtesy are in themselves too much for it. They anger him because he regards his time as his own and feels that it is being stolen. You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption ‘My time is my own’. Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours. Let him feel as a grievous tax that portion of this property which he has to make over to his employers, and as a generous donation that further portion which he allows to religious duties. But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birthright... The man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift… He is also, in theory, committed to a total service of the Enemy; and if the Enemy appeared to him in bodily form and demanded that total service for even one day he would not refuse." (page 110-111)

“The horror of the Same Old Thing is one of the most valuable passions we have produced in the human heart—an endless source of heresies in religion, folly in counsel, infidelity in marriage, and inconstancy in friendship… Just as we pick out and exaggerate the pleasure of eating to produce gluttony, so we pick out this natural pleasantness of change and twist it into a demand for absolute novelty" (page 135).

“But, if only he can be kept alive, you have time itself for your ally. The long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather. You see, it is so hard for these creatures to persevere” (page 155).

Lewis had just such a sense of human nature. It's amazing to me how much of his work strikes a chord--and particularly how much of it seems to relate to LDS doctrine. That must be because it is filled with truth.