2018 Yearly Recap

At the end of last year, I decided not to keep track of the number of books I read this year because I didn't want to feel obligated to read more and more. And it turns out that I read just as many as I did in 2017, almost exactly. I am kind of surprised by that, but it makes me happy. I read a TON in the first half of the year, but not as much in the last quarter. I don't know what it is about the holiday season, but I feel so busy that I can't let myself sit down and read (or at least that's how it was this year).

But in looking back at the books I read this year, I'm super happy about everything I got to read and listen to. There were some really, really good ones. I re-read a lot of classics that I loved (all of the Betsy-Tacy books, and I'm in the middle now of all the Anne of Green Gables ones) and I've found that those are the ones I gravitate to when I am in the need of comfort or just being comfortable.

It's interesting--most of these books that made the list (other than the obvious classics) were audiobooks that I listened to from the library. Thank you, Frisco library!

Best Fiction: My Plain Jane, The Great Alone, Unequal Affection, Dark Matter

Best Classics: Anne of Green Gables, Rebecca, Emily of Deep Valley, Cheaper by the Dozen, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Best Non-fiction: Educated, 1776, Shoe Dog, The Read-Aloud Family

Best YA/middle-grade: Okay for Now, The War that Saved My Life, Echo

Best children's/read-alouds: All-of-a-Kind Family, all of the Betsy-Tacy books but particularly Betsy's Wedding and Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown, James and the Giant Peach


I have several goals for this year. We are talking about going to England in August for our tenth anniversary, so I want to read a lot of British books and histories. I can't wait. I also want to re-read a bunch of Shakespeare's plays as well, and some Jane Austen? And I'm going to continue working my way through some favorite series, including Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter (as both of those are British series, they fit in well with my other goal). So many good things to look forward to for this year.

Mercy Watson Collection by Kate DiCamillo

I had never read these books, but they seemed really cute and I hear so much about Kate DiCamillo that it seems like her books can't be terrible. These were really cute stories about a pig named Mercy Watson, with two owners who think she's a "porcine wonder" even though all she's really thinking about is her next snack. I thought these were so cute, but not my favorite kids' books. I thought the boys would like them better, and maybe they would have if I were reading them and they could see pictures. But we were just listening to them in the car, and they enjoyed them but never really laughed out loud or anything. I think they would be worth a re-visit, maybe when Graham is learning to read (because they are really early chapter books and are too basic for Dane now).

Anne of the Island by L. M. Montgomery

Anne goes away to college, finally, in this book, after having worked and saved up money for several years and helped Marilla save her eyes. I love how it wasn't this huge sacrifice of her ambition that Anne had to make; she never once questioned that this was what she wanted to do. She valued her family and the people she loved: Marilla, Davy and Dora, and her friends. I loved her time she had at college and the little house she and her friends set up together--it sounded just like the apartments I had with my roommates (without a live-in housekeeper, of course). And I loved the romance story of Roy Gardiner and how Anne realized she was wrong about him and how she really was in love with Gilbert all along. The only thing that could be changed about these books is more details about Anne and Gilbert's romance... but they are pretty wonderful as they are.

Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery

I read this a few weeks ago and have read several more Anne books since then. Although my very favorite of the Anne books is the first one, I love this one so much as well, where Anne is working as a teacher in her old school (I always think that must have been so weird to have your old school-mate come back and be your teacher like happened in the old days). I love the stories about Davy and Dora coming to live at Green Gables, and the magical Miss Lavender. It makes me wish I had Anne's ability to befriend so many people so easily and to discover kindred spirits everywhere. Definitely a classic.

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

There are few books I love as much as the Anne of Green Gables books. I can't tell you how many times I must have read these books in my tween and teen years--dozens of times. The books were falling apart. But I cannot believe I haven't read them once in the seven years I've been keeping track of my reading. This is why I set the goal for 2018 to read books that make me happy--so that I would make a conscious effort to read the books that I want to, not that I think I should. I think I got a little sidetracked with doing that towards the end of this year, as is evidenced by the fact that I read far fewer books in the last quarter of the year than in any of the first three quarters. I felt too busy and stressed to read, which means I didn't actually want to read any of the books I had on my bedside stand. But the week we were packing up to go to Utah and I was so busy with Christmas stuff, I made myself sit down and start reading Anne of Green Gables, and within half an hour I felt happier and better and I was laughing out loud at Anne and her predicaments and her long speeches and her hilarious personality. I could not get over what a difference it made in my mood and in my reading life. I love, love, love these books and I have nothing I would change about them, except maybe more of Gilbert and Anne together... and maybe changing Gilbert's name to something that's actually good so that I could name a son after him. My favorite part of the book is Anne breaking her slate over his head, and her unrelenting scorn of him for years after, and then finally making up with him. There's so much else that's good though. I will never stop loving these books.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson

I loved this book as a child, and I meant for months to read it with the boys at Christmastime. However, we didn't get the chance before our trip to Utah, but I luckily found an audiobook copy at the library that we listened to as we drove. It's so short and easy to get through, but I just love the story of the Herdmans and how bad they are, but how they are affected by the story of the birth of Christ. The boys loved it too, even if they were a little scandalized by some of the parts (like the Herdmans smoking--that's a little dated these days, haha). I want to make it a Christmas tradition to read this every Christmas season (along with A Christmas Carol, although that's a little more high-minded than this one).

Matilda by Roald Dahl

I have a major love for Roald Dahl books, as do most people who read them as children, and I couldn't wait to read Matilda with the boys. It's been hard to figure out how to work in reading with them once Dane started school, however, and it took a while for us to finish this. But finish it we did, and I'm very happy with it. I LOVED the boys' reactions to this book and how much they loved it. They were so angry about Miss Trunchbull, and they still talk about her even weeks after finishing it because she was so evil. One of the best moments of my reading-with-kids experience ever happened when I was reading the chapter of Miss Honey's story to Dane and when we got to the end and she said that her aunt was Miss Trunchbull, and Dane looked at me SO SHOCKED with his mouth wide open and eyes blazing, and we just stared at each other like we couldn't get over how crazy that development in the story was. He was so into the story and loved it, and I did too. It was such a good book to share together.

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt

I loved, LOVED The Wednesday Wars, which Schmidt wrote first. I'd never heard of it until a few years ago, when a few of the book blogs I follow recommended them. And then I kept hearing about how Okay for Now was just as good and I was so excited to get to it. And yes, it WAS just as good. It was fantastic. The Wednesday Wars uses Shakespeare in this kid's life, and Okay for Now is more about the art of John James Audubon and how art impacts Doug Szwieteck's life (I actually don't know how his name was spelled, since I listened to it, and I'm not going to look it up right now). Doug was a minor character in The Wednesday Wars, but he becomes the narrator and main character of this book. He and his family move away from the original town and move to a small town in upstate New York, and he hates it at first and people assume that he and his brother are "twisted criminal minds" because maybe they are. But he finds a copy of John James Audubon's Birds of America on display at the library and gets sucked into the beauty of the paintings and trying to learn how to draw them. I love how Schmidt paints these stories of kind of unhappy families, but doesn't leave them totally unredeemed--there's a happier ending with a hopeful slant to it, after Doug's brother comes home changed for the better in Vietnam, and after his dad does something that isn't totally terrible for once. I was totally absorbed in this story, and Schmidt is such a great writer who never, ever breaks character or writes something that feels out of place. Even when kind of extraordinary things happen, like Doug getting drafted to act in a Broadway play, it feels totally understandable and believable. I loved this and will definitely be buying a copy for our house.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

I read this in college--I'm not sure if it was for a class or just because I was wanting to read Pulitzers more then too--and remember loving it. But then I am pretty sure I lost my copy or someone took it and never gave it back, and I re-bought it several times until I had three copies this weekend, haha! I gave two of them away at my two book club Christmas parties this week, and finished my own copy tonight. It was just as good as I remember. It's a collection of short stories by an Indian-American author and each one is about both of those countries and people navigating between them. Several are set fully in India and not involving any Americans (but I felt like those were my least favorite), but I loved the ones where Indians have moved to America and are adjusting to their new lives in America and the new culture here. I love how Lahiri really helped me feel like I was one of them and like I understood what it was like to move to America from India and to lose all my family and to have everything change so drastically. It says on the back of the book that "Lahiri speaks with universal eloquence to everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner," and that's exactly how I felt. My favorite story might have been "The Third and Final Continent" about a man who moves to America for the first time, and how he comes to know his wife after their brief arranged marriage, and also "Interpreter of Maladies," which I remembered from reading the last time. I really loved this book--it rekindled my love of short stories.

Forest Born by Shannon Hale

This was the last book in the Bayern series by Shannon Hale which I listened to in November (and which I'm only just now getting around to writing about!). I felt like this was the worst of the four books--the first half of it especially was annoying. It was almost 1/3 longer than River Secrets and could definitely have been cut down, I felt. But it also was kind of odd to read from yet another different character's perspective and to hear about all these other characters that were main characters in the other books, and to see them being so one-dimensional in this book after seeing them so well-rounded in the other books. Enna in this book is tough and fierce, almost to an extreme, always wanting to fight people and beat them up, basically, and that's pretty much all you see about her. The conversations between Enna, Dasha, and Isi seemed completely unrealistic to me, and kind of annoying, and it was totally unbelievable that Rin could just show up and follow them around and they would be fine with it. I also was a little confused about Rinna's powers as a tree-speaker, and with the whole scene where she avoids all the arrows and stuff by acting like a tree, but it didn't bother me that much. Overall, I was glad to get through this just to finish the series, and I was glad with how it ended, but I didn't like it as much as the others.

Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski

I'm so familiar with Lois Lenski's drawings from the Betsy-Tacy books that I love oh so much. And we've checked out a good number of her children's picture books from the library over the years as well. But I didn't really know that she'd written chapter books of her own, and did it pretty darn well! This book was a Newbery winner from 1946, and is the story of a family living in northern Florida in the early 1900s at a time when it was still pretty much a frontier. It follows Birdie Boyer and her family who move into a new home, and their struggles to get their new farm planted and their fights with their neighbors over whether they can fence in their own land to keep the neighbors' pigs out of their crops. It reminded me of all the frontier type books (aka Little House and Caddie Woodlawn) although it has a distinctive Florida flavoring with talking about raising and selling strawberries, and it was definitely a cute story. I would be happy if my kids read all of these books--they are so wholesome and show kids working hard for their families and show what life was like for people not all that long ago. My only complaint is that the ending was really forced and sudden (the ongoing fight between the two neighbors is finished in one page when the truculent father of the neighboring family is suddenly converted by a traveling preacher), but that's okay. These books aren't really about the overarching story; they're more about each individual chapter and the smaller stories throughout each chapter.

River Secrets by Shannon Hale

This is the third in the series following The Goose Girl, and I actually really enjoyed it. This book follows Razo, another one of the animal workers that Isi knew while she was working as a goose girl, and his experience as a member of Bayern's force protecting the new ambassador to the country of Tira, soon after the war between these two countries ended. Razo and the rest of the soldiers sent there are charged with trying to keep the peace and make friends with the Tiran, and Razo is also trying to prove that he's not worthless, even though he's short and not a good fighter and young. He finds out that he's been brought there to be a spy, because he's very observant and good at finding out things, and he helps to stop some people who are trying to guide the Tiran into another war against Bayern.

I liked the coming of age story about Razo, and his new confidence and his belief in himself as he begins to recognize his skills. I also liked the general plot of the book: it moved quickly, wasn't too long, and incorporated more of the magic of speaking with other things in an interesting way. The only real complaint I had with this book was that I felt like it turned Isi and Geric, and Finn and Enna, into caricatures of the former characters that I read about in the earlier books. Isi and Geric are the perfect, doting parents in a perfect, funny relationship; Enna is strident and demanding and Finn is quiet and stoic and always perfect. They all seemed way less interesting and well-rounded than they did in their own books. I don't know if that's just because we're seeing them simply from Razo's perspective in his own book, but it made me not like them as much. And I felt like the resolution of the romance at the end of this book seemed highly unbelievable, but that's fine. Whatever.

Enna Burning by Shannon Hale

This is the sequel to The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale, and it has many of the same characters but follows the story of Enna, one of Isi's friends from the first book. In the first book, Isi learns how to speak to the wind and control the wind, and in this book, Enna learns about fire-speaking and how to control and send fire. It's obviously much more dangerous than wind-speaking and much of the book is about how Enna has to learn to control it or be burned up by her new talent. I like how Hale gave more shape to this magic of speaking with inanimate objects; the inner workings of the different types of speaking were really interesting and I thought worked well. I did not love it as much as I did The Goose Girl--it seemed much more violent and Enna was a much more headstrong, flashy character than Isi, which sometimes made her annoying. I hate when characters operate under false assumptions or give themselves false either/or situations, like "I HAVE to use my fire powers or else Bayern will fall." I don't believe that. But otherwise, this was a good book with a satisfying ending.

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

I have thought about reading this book for forever, and I'm glad that I finally got around to it. Because it was so well-done. After reading Princess Academy a few months ago I thought that I had to get around to more of Shannon Hale's works--I've always been pleased with her books. I got so sucked in that on the days when I didn't get a chance to listen to the book I kept finding myself thinking about the storyline or the world--it was a true book hangover. I couldn't stop getting excited about it. I loved how this book was based very closely on the original Brothers Grimm fairytale, but how Hale created a very believable and relatable world within the book. There was a very simple magic system, with different types of speaking, and Hale did a great job of giving a new background to the princess and the story, which explained why she would have let herself be overthrown. I felt like there were a few places that were oversimplified and a little annoying (like the whole romance with the prince--I don't believe for a second that the prince would have done that with a goose girl) but it was definitely a great book. I am planning to listen to the sequels if I can before our library stops using hoopla at the end of the month.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

I re-read this book in just a few blazing hours for book club yesterday and I remembered how much I loved it. It was THE BEST. I can't believe how funny it is and how touching at the same time. It was kind of funny talking about it at book club last night because some of them didn't love it as much, and I just can't believe how anyone couldn't appreciate the humor and the sweetness of this book. I cried like 5 times while reading it even this second time around. So amazing.

Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

I can't believe I never read this as a child. I would have loved it, since it's a very similar story and timeline as Little House on the Prairie, one of my very favorite series. I even dressed up as Laura for Halloween one year when I was about seven... so Caddie Woodlawn is right up my alley. It's a similar story about a pioneer family living in Wisconsin and their adventures and things that happen to them. So many of the individual stories are similar to what happens in Little House--encounters with the Native Americans, prairie fires, waiting for the mail from their families back east. But a lot of this is different as well. The Woodlawn's relationship with the native Americans is much more friendly and trusting than that of the Wilders; Caddie especially is friends with them and at one point risks her own life to warn them of danger from the white settlers. And Caddie has a much more adventurous life than Laura ever did, because she is sandwiched by two brothers who she constantly runs around with and explores with. I also felt like the American pride and the whole American storyline was much stronger in this book, especially with the climax and the comparison between England and America at the end, whereas Laura and her family were much less linked to America, since they were outside of the country.

I just loved the feel of the Woodlawn family and their relationship with each other, and their love for Caddie and allowing her to grow up how she needed to. And I loved Caddie's feistiness and her refusal to let anyone get her down.

I read a review on Goodreads about how this book (and others of this time period) propagate negative and untrue views of the Native Americans. I totally noticed a few places where they said things about the Indians that made me wince. But I think it's hard to read these books written in the 1930s and hold them to today's standard of political correctness. I guess it's just important to correct those mis-impressions by talking about what really happened with your kids.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

I read this book years ago, and I've been wanting to re-read the Jhumpa Lahiri books that I remembered thinking were so good. After reading this, I can't wait to revisit Interpreter of Maladies, which were her short stories, because I have heard they were even better. This book is basically the story of one Indian family who moves to America and how they change and grow over three decades of living in America. Their two children are born in America and are torn between their Indian ancestry and their American upbringing, and the story mainly follows Gogol, their son, who struggles with his name and its meaning and what he knows about himself. It also follows the mother, Ashima, at the beginning and at the end. I felt like this book gave such an eye-opening look at what it is like to be an immigrant from another country, the feeling of separation from home that you must always feel and the disconnect between what you know and what your children know, and the struggle that the children feel in trying to be a part of what their parents are forcing them to care about. I feel like I have much more I could say about this book, many more half-formed semi-coherent thoughts I could write if I had more time, but it's time for bed and I will have to save them for another day.

An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal

I don't think I've ever read anything like this before (or listened to it, since this was an audiobook). But oh my goodness, I am so, so glad that I did. This was one of the most eye-opening non-fiction books that I have ever read. I feel like I should buy a hard copy of it to keep on our shelves just in case we ever have medical issues or any sort of hospital or doctor's bills that we need to pay, because this gave so many reasons and ways that our current American healthcare system is broken, and some ways to try and mitigate those problems for ourselves. I feel so jaded about the whole broken system now, and disgusted by the people at the top of the pharmaceutical companies and hospital CEOs and doctors who are just trying to eke every last dollar from the people who end up at their door. It all just seems so unfair, from the fact that there's no pricing ever listed or explained anywhere, to the fact that we naturally place so much trust in doctors and hospitals and expect them to keep us and our children healthy and alive, without us understanding how they do it, so they can take advantage of us by making us pay thousands of dollars for something that costs $60 in other countries. It is kind of heart-breaking and scary to imagine all the consequences of this system and why it doesn't work any more.

I am grateful to have read this book, to help me become a more aware and conscious consumer. I do think well of our doctors (most of them--my endocrinologist's practice stinks) but I feel like these things are so good to know for any time we have unexpected expenses, like when Dane was in the hospital two years ago. I was so unquestioning and accepting of everything the doctors said; they kept him in the hospital for two extra days just for "observation" when he was fine and all they did for those two days was to offer overpriced Tylenol to keep his temperature down. I feel like all of the things she suggested in this book would be such commonsense changes and I wish there was a way they could be implemented without the whole healthcare lobbying industry stopping it.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

I have meant to read this book for years! And years! And years! But this is just one that has slipped through the cracks for me and I have never gotten around to it, until now. I had started it several times but the first few chapters were so slow that I got put off. But this time I powered through because it was for book club, and I could not put it down. Once you get just a few chapters into it, it's hard to put down. The book is about a nameless narrator who marries a dashing widower and goes to live in his fancy manor home in England called Manderley, and realizes that the whole home and everything is still controlled by Rebecca, his first wife. The book is creepy and somewhat dark (in a 1930s way, not in a gross modern way) and way way way more exciting and engrossing than I thought it would be.

We had such an awesome discussion about it at our book club meeting, which raised all sorts of issues that I didn't consider the first time when I was reading the book. I was so engrossed in the story that I didn't even think about all of the ethical questions like, [SPOILER ALERT] isn't it wrong that he killed his first wife? Isn't it wrong that she's helping him to cover it up? Why do we feel compelled to root for them being able to cover it up? What is so wrong with her that she doesn't care that her husband is a murderer? I honestly didn't even care about those things when reading it--I was just so absorbed in the story and in identifying with the narrator and hoping that she would get the happy ending she wanted so badly with her husband she was so (for no apparent reason) desperately in love with. I think that's a sign of what a good book it was, and what a good writer Du Maurier was. I also kind of loved how she would give you a sense of the narrator's internal thoughts and her insecurities. I felt like her issues were really so general and universal, and written about in such a way that everyone could identify with them. I loved it. And I read almost the whole book on Halloween, which seemed like the perfect day to be reading a kind of spooky, creepy book like this.

Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo

I listened to this cute Newbery award winner, but I think I should have just read it. It says it's "the Illuminated Adventures" and I missed out on the cartoon strip drawings that are apparently in the book. However, it would have taken me much longer to get around to reading it.

This was a cute story about a girl and her superhero squirrel friend who gets new powers after getting sucked up by a super-powerful vacuum cleaner. Flora has to try to take care of Ulysses when his arch-nemesis--her mother--decides he must be vanquished. I loved how there were deeper parts of the story, about Flora's worry that her mother doesn't really love her, and William Spyver's (her neighbor) feeling of neglect when he is "banished" by his mother. I loved the squirrel poetry that Ulysses types on the typewriter, and the many sweet things he learns from the hilarious Dr. Michum ("I will always turn back towards you" and true love is getting up in the night to get sardines for someone who can't sleep and sitting there while they eat them in bed). However, I wasn't necessarily obsessed with this story and I don't know that I would read it again. It was cute, but not super memorable to me. I didn't actually blame Flora's mother at all for wanting to get rid of Ulysses, because who would want a squirrel in their house?

Ignore It!: How Selectively Looking the Other Way Can Decrease Behavioral Problems and Increase Parenting Satisfaction by Catherine Pearlman

The title of this book basically says it all--it provides a program to ignore specific behaviors to improve your kids' behavior (specifically, annoying, attention-seeking behaviors). You're supposed to Ignore (when a bad behavior starts), Listen (to hear when they stop), Re-Engage (once they've stopped), and Repair (have them apologize if necessary or for you to apologize to them if you lost your temper before). I think she had some great points, and I feel like I would have learned more from reading it instead of listening to it, but I don't necessarily know that you need a whole book about this. Maybe a long blog post would have worked fine. She had some great examples and stuff, but I feel like if you read one or two main chapters of this book you could basically get the gist of it.

I am definitely a believer in this tactic, though. This basically goes along with what I was already thinking about from Ralphie's instagram stories on Simply On Purpose, and I know that this can be useful. It's just hard to implement all the time. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm already pretty good at ignoring lots of these annoying, bad behaviors because I honestly don't think that my kids do those things very much. There's not much whining or begging or negotiating or whatever at our house because I never, ever give in to those things. (Except for Lucy, because she still can't really talk and is just a baby... but once they get old enough I am a stickler about those sorts of things.)

Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks

I'm pretty impressed by Tom Hanks' writing chops in this book. These stories were all really well-done. They all seemed to incorporate a typewriter somewhere in the story, which is where the title comes from, I guess. The ones I really loved were about the extremely type-A personality Anna dating a much less interesting guy and keeping him on his toes, a guy who goes viral by bowling six perfect games in a row, a time travel story about a guy who goes back in time and falls in love with a woman in the 1930s.

Many of them stood out and were hilarious or touching. I really enjoyed listening to them, especially since Tom Hanks himself read them. But I don't have the brainpower or time right now to write too much more about it, even though I did have other thoughts about them at the time.

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

I read this book for a class in college and I remember loving it, but I didn't remember anything about it. (It's sad how many books I've read that are like that--that I can literally not remember a single thing from the plot or the characters or anything. I wonder how many times I need to read something for it to actually sink in and for me to internalize it.) I've been meaning to re-read this one for a while, and I suggested it for my book club and am leading the discussion on it tomorrow. I am glad to have been forced to read it again, because I would definitely not have made it a priority to read it right now (this week and next are so, so busy!). But it was so, so good and had so many great moments.

This is an interesting book. It's definitely high on character development/the voice of the main narrator and low on plot. The book is formatted as a long letter, a journal of sorts, written by John Ames, an old preacher, to his young (very young) son, who he knows he will not see grow up. It's filled with his deep thoughts about things, including his calling as a preacher, certain doctrines, his relationships with his father and grandfather. The main drama in the story comes when his best friend's wayward son Jack (named after the narrator) comes home to visit and creates all sorts of upheaval in John Ames's life and in his soul. He recognizes all sorts of resentment he's built with his relationship with Jack, and shares all of these deep thoughts with his son.

I think the real beauty of this book is in the quiet, thoughtful wording of these beautiful thoughts. There are so, so many spots that I underlined and want to remember. I absolutely loved the sweetness of Ames's love for his son, his much longed-for son who was born when he was already in his late sixties. He spent 45 years wishing and waiting for a family after his died, and his love for his young wife and son is written about so simply and beautifully. Here were some of my favorite quotes about his son:
"I'm writing this in part to tell you that if you ever wonder what you've done in your life, and everyone does wonder sooner or later, you have been God's grace to me, a miracle, something more than a miracle. You may not remember me very well at all, and it may seem to you to be no great thing to have been the good child of an old man in a shabby little town you will no doubt leave behind. If only I had the words to tell you" (52).
"I know you will be and I hope you are an excellent man, and I will love you absolutely if you are not" (73).
"Harm to you is not harm to me in the strict sense, and that is a great part of the problem. He could knock me down the stairs and I would have worked out the theology for forgiving him before I reached the bottom. But if he harmed you in the slightest way, I'm afraid theology would fail me" (190).
"I can tell you this, that if I'd married some rosy dame and she had given me ten children and they had each given me ten grandchildren, I'd leave them all, on Christmas Eve, on the coldest night of the world, and walk a thousand miles just for the sight of your face, your mother's face" (237).
"I'll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country. I will pray you find a way to be useful" (247).

There are so many other beautiful passages, some of them so beautiful they made me want to cry. I feel like I am getting better at appreciating really beautiful writing on an emotional level--I may not be able to express what I'm thinking and why I love it, but I can tell what I love. And I love so much of the writing in this book. It is very slow-moving--although there are parts with more narrative structure that move more quickly--but it is very worth it. It was so uplifting and hopeful. I would love to read the next two that are companion books to this one. I am going to request them next week when we get back.

Saints, Volume 1: The Standard of Truth, 1815-1846

A big thank you to the Church for putting their new church history book in the LDS Library app for free, and providing free audio to it so I could just listen to it like a regular audiobook. I would have probably never gotten around to reading this if I hadn't had the audio version. But I'm glad I did. This book covers the early period of church history, in a new narrative version of church history. It seems like the Church is being more open about some of the uncomfortable parts of our history, the things that have been stumbling blocks to people before, like plural marriage and seer stones and the negative things that leaders have done. I didn't feel like much of this history was new to me--I'd learned it all in Church History at BYU. But I was surprised by how uncomfortable a lot of it made me, even though I knew it all. I think I was uncomfortable with how unapologetic this account was, with no explanations or reasonings or apologies for anything which we Mormons are used to explaining away. In my head, I agree with this approach and I think the bare-bones, open nature of this book is going about it the right way, but in my heart, I think I'm still not comfortable with all of these things and I want more explanations to make it more palatable. Particularly everything with plural marriage, which we all know is a huge issue for pretty much everyone today. I've never struggled with major aspects of church history, but I can definitely see why people do.

I did love a lot of this book, though. I loved the focus on lots of different people and how regular people sought and received revelation. Throughout the whole story, from the very beginning, each person prayed to Heavenly Father to receive an answer if the church was true or if a specific doctrine was true. The book talked about how these answers came and what the Spirit felt like for each person. I really liked that angle of the book and how it taught those sorts of doctrines. I also loved some of the faith-promoting stories that were new and fresh, like about Wilford Woodruff serving a mission in some far-off islands and about Edward Partridge's family. I learned a lot about the sequences of things in church history as well. This book made it seem like there was a direct connection between the leaders of the church directing the Nauvoo Expositor press to be destroyed and Joseph eventually being murdered. I didn't really realize that those things happened in such quick succession, or that's why Joseph was eventually captured and held prisoner.

I thought a lot about how we choose to write and view history while listening to this book. The very act of rewriting Church history is an acknowledgement of the fact that history can be rewritten and re-framed based on how you choose to write about it and what you choose to include. I think this step in rewriting the Church's history is a really positive, eye-opening step towards acknowledging some of the darker parts of church history, which aren't emphasized as much but still are there. They don't need to be kept a secret, because it makes us stronger when we know about them and talk about them, and learn from them. (I kept thinking about the "Me, Too" movement when the whole John C. Bennett chapter was going on, when the women talked about how he persuaded them to sleep with him by telling them it was sanctioned by Joseph. So horrible that things like that happened back then like they're still happening today--men in positions of power taking advantage of that power to hurt women. From this account, it seemed like the leaders of the church took the women's accusations seriously, and took away Bennett's power. Maybe not as quickly as they should have, but they did.)

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

After reading several of Elizabeth Strout's other works, I'm so glad I finally got around to Olive Kitteridge. It's almost exactly the same as Anything is Possible, with thirteen short stories that are mostly distinct except that they all mention (or are about) the character of Olive Kitteridge, and they all go so deep into the characters in that you feel like you know them and their deepest thoughts, fears, and secrets. It seems like most of the stories are about old married couples and the anxieties and fears and realities of growing old, and the anxieties and fears and realities of just being human.

Olive Kitteridge, the supposed main character, is not a typical sympathetic character. She is prickly and grumpy and mean, but not in a stereotypical way--just in the way that she doesn't understand a lot of other people and sometimes she is afraid. She is human. She has done a lot of things she regrets, like how she raised her son, but she loves him to death and can't understand where they've gone wrong. She loves her husband but takes him for granted. She loses her temper and gets angry without knowing why. It's so real. You can't help liking her even when she's being irrational and terrible. One of the most poignant scenes in the book is when Olive encounters a girl who is almost dying of anorexia. Olive sits down and cries with her, stroking her hair and helping her figuring out a way out of this. Olive shows more humanity and sympathy and love for someone--this girl who is totally unconnected to her--than she often does to her husband and son. And isn't that like all of us sometimes?

I really love Strout's writing. But it's kind of depressing to see so much into a person (even a fictional person) and to see how much sadness and fear and angst there is, even behind a normal facade. It's also a little scary to see how hard it is to get old. So I love it but it's also kind of depressing. But it's worth reading all the same.

On a related note, I'm going to start trying to read all the Pulitzer and Newbery award winners. It will literally take me years to do this, so it's not like it's a huge goal that I'm going to do to the expense of all my other reading, but I'm going to try to do one a month or something. This is the first Pulitzer I've read since deciding on doing this goal.

Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin

I read this book three years ago, right after it came out, and I remembered it being good. Good enough that I decided to use it as our inaugural book club book for the book club I'm starting in our ward here! I am so excited about it and so hopeful that people will want to join. And I think this was a great choice for a book club pick. I have three pages of quotes and notes and questions of things I want to discuss with the group after reading it through again. You definitely don't need to read the whole thing to get a lot of the benefit of it, but I thought it was really motivating. I don't actually have a lot of habits I want to change right now (off the top of my head), but she gives specific techniques and strategies that we can use to make new habits a part of our lives. I love thinking about how we have control over our habits. I wrote this on my document for discussion in our book club, because I think this is the main point I get out of this book: "Sometimes we talk about habits as though they’re things that we can’t stop or control. Especially bad habits. But I love the perspective in this book that we absolutely can control them. We can deliberately look at our values and our goals and what we want to become, and decide what things we need or want to do each day that will reflect those values or future selves. Richard G. Scott said, “We become who we want to be by consistently being who we want to become each day.” At a very basic level, our daily habits are who we are. It doesn’t mean that it’s easy, but there are specific strategies that we can use to incorporate those specific habits we’ve chosen into our everyday routines. This is the main message of hope that I get out of this book: we get to choose who we are and what we do every day."

I can't wait to get our group together to discuss it. I am crossing my fingers we will get a good showing!

Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary

I am so happy that Graham is getting so excited about our chapter books. I think Ribsy is the one that did it for him. The whole last two weeks he has asked me every day, "Can we read where Henry Met Ribsy today?" because that's what I called Henry Huggins the first time I told him about it. We're going to read Henry and Ribsy next because I have to capitalize on this excitement... he's only 3 1/2 so still a little young to be listening but I love it.

This book is a cute story about Henry Huggins and his dog Ribsy. Each chapter is a little episode in their lives. However, reading it right after Ribsy made it feel a little less original. Several things seemed to be exactly the same between the two books. They both have a scene where Ribsy is given a bath and needs to be showered off, and then another scene where Ribsy gets his picture in the paper and someone recognizes him from the picture and finds him. I feel like Cleary shouldn't have made them so similar. But my boys loved it and definitely didn't notice it so oh well.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

I read the abridged, illustrated classic version of this many times as a kid, and what really stuck in my mind was the vision of Miss Havisham in her corpse-like bridal outfit with her rotting wedding cake still sitting on the table, and Pip having to visit her when he was a child. But I think since I knew the story so well as a child, I assumed that I had read the whole thing. But I'm pretty sure I never have. I have wanted to get to more of Dickens' works in the last few years, and I finally bought this one and made it a priority enough to make it through it.

It's funny--there are books that I want to read, that I enjoy reading when I'm actually reading it, but that don't grip me enough to make me sit down and power through it in a few short days. It seems like many classics are like that. I wonder if it's because my brain has been trained to expect books that have been thoroughly edited to be as fast-paced and interesting and well-written as possible, so that when I read a classic, no matter how much I truly love it, it's just harder to read and harder to focus on for such a long time. I've read several articles (one I assigned to my class for homework) about how our brains have been changed by the Internet and smartphones and how we are not as able to focus on things that are long and hard any more because we are so used to jumping from thing to thing. I wonder if this difficulty with reading Dickens is part of that, or if it's normal to have a hard time reading Dickens.

All of this is to say--I really like Dickens. I find his characters so original and interesting and sometimes hilarious, and the storylines are great. Tale of Two Cities is one of my very favorite books. But man, this book took me so long to get through. And I think it's probably because I wasn't as drawn into it to forsake all of my other responsibilities and throw caution to the winds and read it all day and night until I finished. I think I need to balance books like this with shorter, quicker reads so that it doesn't always feel like a chore, and I can feel that small sense of accomplishment that I get when I finish a book without having to wait so long in between books.

There were so many things I loved about this book. The beginning of Pip as a child in the creepy graveyard with the convict threatening him for food; the whole story about Pip going to Satis House and meeting Miss Havisham and Estella; his brother-in-law Joe and his disinterested goodness and simplicity; Pip's coming-of-age and realization of how he'd squandered his "great expectations" and his desires to fix his mistakes; the whole character of Wemmick and his totally different personalities and beliefs when he's at home vs. when he's in the office. Everything seems so original, particularly the images of Miss Havisham in her ravaged wedding gown and her obsession with punishing men for what happened to her.

And there are just so many spots where Dickens encapsulates some essence of humanity, or touches on something so universally human and emotional, which always rings so true, particularly when it comes out of a story that seems so quintessentially Victorian and almost foreign to our modern ears. I think that is the true reason for his genius--he really understands people and how we think and feel. Here were some of my favorite quotes that I underlined as I was writing:

"Throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise" (218).

"Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together" (224).

"All other swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such pretences did I cheat myself" (225).

"There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. In the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one" (274).

"I did really cry in earnest when I went to bed, to think that my expectations had done some good to somebody" (299).

"I never had one hour's happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me unto death" (301).

"You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since--on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil." (364).

"Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but--I hope--into a better shape" (484).


There are always parts of Dickens' books that could be cut out or cut down, in order to focus on the main point of the plot. But then I bet the whole Wemmick storyline would be cut out, and I would never want to lose that story of him and his Aged Parent and his hilariously surprising wedding. So I guess we just need to decide where to skim and where to savor in his books and enjoy it all.

Good Poems for Hard Times, selected by Garrison Keillor

I want to read more poetry--or actually, ANY poetry. In the six years that I have been keeping track of my reading on this blog, I have read exactly zero books of poems. I think that's because I just don't know where to start when it comes to poetry. I know the stuff that I read in high school and college, but I don't know what's good poetry now or how to find it. And I am still on a mission to do that. But I went to our library and looked at the poetry shelf--which was pitifully small with only one tiny shelf of books--and checked out a few of them. The nice thing about poems is that you can just read a few here or there and it's not like you need to have a big chunk of time to devote to reading it. And I really enjoyed reading this book. It seemed like a great collection of poems to me, in my supremely inexperienced opinion, and there were a couple that struck me so strongly. One even made me tear up. I'm going to include the ones I loved here.

"A Poem for Emily," by Miller Williams (this is the one that made me cry. It was the last line. Parenting feelings.)

Small fact and fingers and farthest one from me,
a hand’s width and two generations away,
in this still present I am fifty-three.
You are not yet a full day.

When I am sixty-three, when you are ten,
and you are neither closer nor as far,
your arms will fill with what you know by then,
the arithmetic and love we do and are.

When I by blood and luck am eighty-six
and you are someplace else and thirty-three
believing in sex and God and politics
with children who look not at all like me,

sometime I know you will have read them this
so they will know I love them and say so
and love their mother. Child, whatever is
is always or never was. Long ago

a day I watched awhile beside your bed,
I wrote this down, a thing that might be kept
awhile, to tell you what I would have said
when you were who knows what and I was dead
which is I stood and loved you while you slept.

"The Summer Camp Bus Pulls Away from the Curb," by Sharon Olds (another exquisite parenting one. Perfect timing to read the week that Dane started kindergarten.)

Whatever he needs, he has or doesn’t
have by now.
Whatever the world is going to do to him
it has started to do. With a pencil and two
Hardy Boys and a peanut butter sandwich and
grapes he is on his way, there is nothing
more we can do for him. Whatever is
stored in his heart, he can use, now.
Whatever he has laid up in his mind
he can call on. What he does not have,
he can lack. The bus gets smaller and smaller, as one
folds a flag at the end of a ceremony,
onto itself, and onto itself, until
only a heavy wedge remains.
Whatever his exuberant soul
can do for him, it is doing right now.
Whatever his arrogance can do
it is doing to him. Everything
that’s been done to him, he will now do.
Everything that’s been placed in him
will come out, now, the contents of a trunk
unpacked and lined up on a bunk in the underpine light.

"To A Daughter Leaving Home," by Linda Paslan (apparently my favorites were all the parenting ones. This one seemed perfect since we also just taught Dane to ride a bike this summer too.)

When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable
with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye.

"Nothing is Lost,"  by Noel Coward

Deep in our sub-conscious, we are told
Lie all our memories, lie all the notes
Of all the music we have ever heard
And all the phrases those we loved have spoken,
Sorrows and losses time has since consoled,
Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes
Each sentimental souvenir and token
Everything seen, experienced, each word
Addressed to us in infancy, before
Before we could even know or understand
The implications of our wonderland.
There they all are, the legendary lies
The birthday treats, the sights, the sounds, the tears
Forgotten debris of forgotten years
Waiting to be recalled, waiting to rise
Before our world dissolves before our eyes
Waiting for some small, intimate reminder,
A word, a tune, a known familiar scent
An echo from the past when, innocent
We looked upon the present with delight
And doubted not the future would be kinder
And never knew the loneliness of night.

"Tie the Strings to my Life, My Lord," by Emily Dickinson

Tie the Strings to my Life, My Lord,
Then, I am ready to go!
Just a look at the Horses --
Rapid! That will do!

Put me in on the firmest side --
So I shall never fall --
For we must ride to the Judgment --
And it's partly, down Hill --

But never I mind the steepest --
And never I mind the Sea --
Held fast in Everlasting Race --
By my own Choice, and Thee --

Goodbye to the Life I used to live --
And the World I used to know --
And kiss the Hills, for me, just once --
Then -- I am ready to go!

"Crossing the Bar," by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Sunset and evening star,
      And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
      When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
      Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
      Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
      And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
      When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
      The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
      When I have crost the bar.

Educated by Tara Westover

This book was insane. INSANE. I know everyone and their mom has read this lately, and it is really big. And that is for a reason--it is really, really well written, and a really, really compelling story about the author's childhood living in a rural Idaho town and being raised without going to school or having any sort of education at all, then going to college and learning about what the world was like outside of her home. She was raised by some survivalist, almost fundamentalist Mormons who were extremely anti-government, anti-doctor, and believed in the literal end of the world, and spent all their time canning food for the end of the world. Besides that, Tara was taught extreme and terrible things about women and their place in the home and the reasons for modesty (her dad and brother regularly called her a whore) and her brother eventually started being abusive and violent towards her as she got older. She eventually got into college after teaching herself enough math to be able to pass the ACT, and went to BYU and eventually began to realize how much she'd learned as a child was wrong--or nonexistent. She raised her hand in her first week of class and asked what the Holocaust was. She'd never heard of Martin Luther King, Jr., or the civil rights movement, and she didn't know that she had textbooks to buy or read for each class. Her adjustment to college was very difficult, but she eventually went on and earned a PhD from Harvard and Cambridge.

This book was incredibly difficult to listen to and just mind-blowing in its effects. It wasn't depressing by any means--she wrote very evenly about all of these very difficult and sometimes dangerous experiences of her childhood, and you can tell that she is being as honest as possible about what happened to her by examining what she really experienced and what she believes. It is just so eye-opening about how warped and twisted people's minds can be by what they are taught--that's one of the main things she says she realized and what she tries to study as she became a historian: how do we know what is really history when all we really know is what others tell us? I thought that was such a fascinating thought. She is one of seven children, and some of her siblings have totally followed the ways of their parents with no education and no desire to know anything about the outside world, while three of them have escaped and gone to college and moved farther out from their tiny world that their father tried to enclose around them in their childhood.

I was very moved by this book and by everything I learned from it. And I am so grateful that I was not born into a family that is remotely like that. I kept thinking that I hoped that people reading this would know that this family is the extreme of the extreme--not at all like the values that our Church teaches. The worst of the worst. I would love to read this one and talk about it for book club.

Ribsy by Beverly Cleary

This is the first read-aloud book that Graham has really been interested in! He definitely is not wanting to sit down and listen for super long, but he really likes Ribsy and kept asking me to read it. Yesterday, after we finished it, I told him there were some other books with Henry Huggins and Ribsy, and he begged and begged and begged me to read more of them. So we are already started on Henry Huggins. This book is super cute, about Ribsy accidentally getting lost and not being able to find his way home to Henry, and the things he gets up to while on his way home. I just love everything Beverly Cleary--she understands kids and she understands reality. I hate when I read books about kids and think, Does this person actually know any five-year-olds? They aren't precious little fireflies that just flitter around and say cute things on demand. But Cleary really gets inside their heads (and in this book, into Ribsy's head) and it feels like things that could really and truly happen. I'd never read this before as a kid (I stuck to the Ramona books instead of the Henry Huggins books) so I enjoyed reading it too.

My Oxford Year by Julia Whelan

I've listened to Julia Whelan narrating several audiobooks (and she is fantastic), and then I heard some rave reviews about her novel. So I decided to listen to it. And it was good--well-written, interesting, quick-paced romance. But I was kind of expecting more to it instead of literally just a meet-cute then a I hate you then a "we're in love" sequence. I don't know if the title was misleading--since it's set in Oxford and about a girl achieving her lifelong dream of going to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar--but I thought there would be more about, I don't know, being at Oxford? Ella, the main character, is a literal Rhodes scholar, plus is apparently the best person ever at education policy because she's working on a presidential campaign and they're willing to let her work from England because she's just that good--but her schooling and her job play literally 0% of the storyline other than her mentioning she had to take a call from Gavin once every chapter. I thought this book would be not just about falling in love with your professor after two weeks of being at school and sleeping with him a million times and [SPOILERS] then finding out he has a terminal illness and becoming his actual girlfriend and taking care of him? It seemed wayyyyy too obvious and it annoyed me that there wasn't more to it. I was kind of done with it halfway through but I didn't want to give up once I was already that far, so I finished it. It was good, but not as good as I thought it might be, so my opinion of it is influenced by my unfair expectations, I guess.

Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis

I feel conflicted about this book. I really enjoyed most of it while I was listening, and I loved hearing the author reading it and feeling like I was getting to know her personality. She seems like she is super funny and awesome and like someone who I'd want to be friends with (but I'd never be able to keep up with, honestly). And I loved how she wasn't so coddling with her advice and opinions like so many articles and things are that we read these days. I feel like most things that are written for moms say things just like, "Mama, you're doing amazing. Just remember how amazing you are," but it's kind of disingenuous because yeah, we are amazing, but everyone can be better, and some people just flat out AREN'T doing amazing so reading stuff like that isn't that helpful. Hollis had much more of a "tough love" approach, like "Sure, you're amazing--so do better. Don't just sit there and watch Netflix in your free time--do something more useful that can help you achieve your dreams that you keep giving up on." etc. I feel like this is pretty awesome and she got me thinking a little bit about what some of my goals and dreams are--which I still haven't really identified, but she at least got me thinking about how to make concrete steps towards my goals.

But, on the other hand, I kind of disagreed with some of the things she was saying. She liked to go on and on and on about how awesome and hardworking and amazingly successful and confident she was in herself--which is really great, but it ended up getting old throughout the book. (I'd never heard of her or her blog or her amazingly successful company that she kept talking about and which she made it sound like she was everywhere.) She said over and over again that she was the hardest working person EVER, and the toughest and strongest and best at XY and Z. I am sure that I was just being influenced by our culture that says that women have to be humble and unassuming and that's why it was bothering me, but it did. One of her chapters was all about how she had the goal to buy a $1000 Louis Vuitton bag, and how she was able to visualize that goal and how that goal motivated her to work as hard as she could until she could achieve it. I liked the message behind it, but I can't get behind that specific example, and I can't help think how different her life must be from mine (or most people's) if that's something she really can buy.

However, it was definitely worth a listen. These issues that I have with it were definitely not as important as I'm making them, because I enjoyed it while I was listening to it. I feel like I'd even buy this book to come back to it later, because there were some really great parts. I just don't want to feel like I have to take advice from someone who's pretty much my own age but who is making her career based off of a lifestyle blog.

My Southern Journey: True Stories from the Heart of the South by Rick Bragg

I don't think I would have loved this book if I had read it--but I did love it as an audiobook. It is 100% necessary that you listen to this book instead of read it, so that you can listen to Rick Bragg's crazy strong Southern drawl reading his essays about football, southern food, and the red dirt of the South. All of these essays were put together from being previously published in magazines, mostly Southern Living, and all of them are about Bragg's life, childhood, and experiences of the South. And all of them give you the strongest feeling of the South. It made me want to go eat a grouper sandwich, something I have never even heard of and doesn't even sound remotely appealing to me, and to move to New Orleans and feel the liquid dirt there. I loved all of his family members who he wrote about so lovingly, and loved the imagery of all of his huge family gatherings and his strong sense of a family tree and his Southern heritage. This book made me feel like I want to move to Alabama, which is a huge accomplishment considering how little I actually want to do that. The only other book I've read that makes me feel that way is To Kill a Mockingbird. I wish I could have written down what some of the best lines were, but I couldn't since I was listening to it. This wasn't a page-turner by any means (or whatever the equivalent would be for an audiobook), but everything in it was so good. I'm wanting to read much more Southern literature now.

Paradise Lost by John Milton

I started off listening to this as an audiobook, but I found that I couldn't focus enough to get out of it what I wanted to. So I bought a copy of this (this is one that I want to have on my shelves) and read it while listening to the audio. It took me a few months to get through it--I've been reading a lot of other things so I just did this a few chunks here or there--but I feel like this is one that you can't just rush through anyways. I wanted to be slow and savor it, and really get something out of it. I read a few parts of this in college, but never the whole thing, and I don't really know that I knew what the whole thing was about. I didn't realize how grand of scope the whole epic poem is. It's about the Fall, of course, but it's also about the great war in heaven between God and Satan and their followers, and about what happens to Satan and where he goes, and about the Creation and what is going to happen after the Fall on the earth as well. When this poem is described as an epic poem, it really and truly is Epic.

I feel like there is a lot of LDS doctrine in this poem. (There's a lot of very, very wrong doctrine as well, particularly about Eve and her role in the Fall and about women in general, but that's just to be expected, I guess. It still was annoying to read.) There's a lot of focus on men's agency and the agency of the spirits in heaven, and about obedience and the consequences of our choices. Satan is a full-fledged character in the poem, particularly in the first half, and he's delightfully wicked and prideful and vengeful, as Satan should be. I kept thinking while reading this that the title Paradise Lost is kind of about two different paradises that have been lost: Adam and Eve lost the Garden of Eden by eating of the fruit, but it is also about how the spirits who followed Satan were thrown into hell after their rebellion and they lost the paradise of living in heaven with God. I think that loss is almost more poignant and heart-breaking (particularly when looked at through the lens of LDS doctrine, since we know the Fall from the Garden was supposed to happen and not actually a terrible thing after all). I kind of liked how Adam and Eve were such fallible characters, especially after they ate the fruit and they began to see the consequences of what they had done and they began to blame each other and fight and have to work through their actions. I like to think that Adam and Eve were so mature that they truly saw the bigger picture, but we know they hid themselves from God when they knew he was coming, so they may not have been and there very well may have been some fault-finding and blaming going on there. I feel like reading this made me think so much about Satan and how he works, and about the Creation and the Fall in a different way.

As I read, I kept finding quotes and things that were especially meaningful or beautiful and underlining them. Here are some of the best:

Satan: "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" (Book 1).

God: "They trespass, authors to themselves in all
Both what they judge and what they choose; for so
I formed them free, and free they must remain,
Till they enthrall themselves" (Book 3)

Satan: "O then at last relent, is there no place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left?
None left but by submission, and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the Spirits beneath...
So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear.
Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost;
Evil be thou my good" (Book 4)

Satan: "Here, happy creature, fair angelic Eve,
Partake thou also; happy though thou art,
Happier thou may'st be, worthier canst not be:
Taste this and be henceforth among the gods,
Thyself a goddess, not to earth confined" (Book 5)

Raphael to Adam: "God made thee perfect, not immutable;
And good he made thee, but to persevere
He left it in thy power, ordained thy will
By nature free, not overruled by Fate
Inextricable, or strict necessity;
Our voluntary service he requires; ...
Freely we serve,
Because we freely love, as in our will
To love or not; in this we stand or fall:
And some are fall'n, to disobedience fall'n,
And so from Heav'n to deepest Hell; O fall
From what high state of bliss into what woe!" (Book 5)

Adam: "I now see
Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, my self
Before me; woman is her name, of man
Extracted; for this cause he shall forgo
Father and mother, and to his wife adhere;
And they shall be one flesh, one heart, one soul" (Book 8)

Raphael: "Be strong, live happy, and love, but first of all
Him whom to love is to obey, and keep
His great command; take heed lest passion sway
Thy judgement to do aught, which else free will
Would not admit" (Book 8)

Satan: "All good to me becomes
Bane, and in Heav'n much worse would be my state.
But neither here seek I, no nor in Heav'n
To dwell, unless by mastering Heav'n's Supreme;
Nor hope to be myself less miserable
By what I seek, but others to make such
As I, though thereby worse to me redound:
For only in destroying I find ease
To my relentless thoughts" (Book 9)

Eve: "For bliss, as thou hast part, to me is bliss,
Tedious, unshared with thee, and odious soon.
Thou therefore also taste, that equal lot
May join us, equal joy, as equal love" (Book 9)

Satan: "That which to me belongs,
Is enmity, which he will put between
Me and mankind; I am to bruise his heel;
His seed, when is not set, shall bruise my head:
A world who would not purchase with a bruise,
Or much more grievous pain?" (Book 10)

Adam: "Pains only in child-bearing were foretold,
And bringing forth, soon recompensed with joy,
Fruit of thy womb" (Book 10)

Michael: "Yet doubt not but in valley and in plain
God is as here, and will be found alike
Present, and of his presence many a sign
Still following me, still compassing thee round
With goodness and paternal love, his face
Express, and of his steps the track divine." (Book 11)

Michael: "The rule of Not too much, by temperance taught
In what thou eat'st and drink'st, seeking from thence
Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight,
Till many years over thy head return:
So may'st thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop
Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease
Gathered, not harshly plucked, for death mature" (Book 11)

Michael: "Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv'st
Live well, how long and short permit to Heav'n" (Book 11)

Michael: "Judge not what is best
By pleasure, though to nature seeming meet,
Created, as thou art, to nobler end
Holy and pure, conformity divine" (Book 11)

Adam: "Henceforth I learn, that to obey is best,
And love with fear the only God, to walk
As in his presence, ever to observe
His Providence, and on him sole depend" (Book 12)