Even As I Am by Neal A. Maxwell

9/10

Seems like an appropriate Christmastime book to post right about now. This was my first Maxwell book that I read (on my mission) and I think it is my favorite of the four books of his that I have read.

It's interesting subject matter. Maxwell points out how during his mortal ministry Christ gave "the startling commandment" to "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Then, after having been resurrected and becoming fully perfect himself, he gives the Nephites the same command, but slightly different: "I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect." And he also later says, "What manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am." I found it an interesting insight that Christ could add himself alongside his Father only after he was resurrected. Other insights are also contained in classic Maxwell writing style about how to fulfill such a daunting command (and how it was not given to taunt us).

After this post I will have posted all four Maxwell books that I have read. I have four more on my "need to read shelf" that I will get to in a coming day, so stay tuned.

Few quotes of the many:

"What He is presses in upon me in relentless reminder of what I should be."

"Lucifer is best dispatched at the doorstep - not after he's been invited in and has unpacked his things."

"Remember, Lucifer is an incurable insomniac."

"Never has anyone offered so much to so many in so few words as did Jesus when He said, 'Here am I, send me.'"

Superstud by Paul Feig

3/10

I just finished reading this today. After the terrible experience of reading Ulysses I felt like my "choosing my next book privileges" should be revoked. So I had my four year old daughter Mallory stand in front of my bookshelf and pick my next book. I felt like Robert Redford in The Natural when  he asks the batboy to choose a bat for him by saying "pick me out a winner, Bobby." Mallory chose Superstud and when I asked her why, she said "Because of the funny boy." But what both Mallory and I didn't know was that this book was pretty perverse and even had some fairly blasphemous moments that were not at all enjoyable to read. Thus, Mallory did not pick me out a winner like Bobby did when he gave Roy Hobbs the "Savoy Special."

It seems like I should have known that the book would be raunchy based on the language of the cover. I guess I thought there would be some of those moments here and there, but it ended up comprising quite a large portion of the book. I was mostly hoping the book would be about awkwardly embarrassing dates and getting rejected by girls in humiliating fashion. There is some of that, but not enough as it is outweighed by the raunchy approach instead.

I wanted to read it because I'm a bit of a Paul Feig fan. He's the creator of Freaks and Geeks which is one of the greatest shows of all time. He has also directed several episodes of Arrested Development and The Office, amongst other things. I had also read his book Kick Me (previously posted in this blog) which I found to be extremely hilarious and entertaining. Unfortunately, this book didn't contain the humorous innocence of Kick Me but rather contained his clueless attempts at pursuing his deviant thoughts about girls. There are funny bits here and there, but not enough to overcome the shame I felt from reading this kind of book. I would not recommend you read this book. Read Kick Me instead.

Five Classics by Truman G. Madsen

8/10

I read this on my mission. I really liked it. Probably not as much as his Joseph Smith the Prophet book, but I still remember liking it. It's your typical Truman G. philosophically heavy stuff. I feel like Eternal Man was the hardest, but perhaps most enjoyable of the five books. Christ and the Inner Life is also very excellent, as is Four Essays on Love which I remember not looking forward to reading and then being pleasantly surprised by it.

Read this if you want to do some deep thinking. You should also commit to spending some time on it because it reads slower than most books and is just shy of 400 pages.

A few of the many quotes:

From Eternal Man: "[O]ne can only justify a belief in free agency by a belief in pre-existence.... Every mortal, to reverse the popular statement, did 'ask to be born.'... We might have avoided mortality. Billions did, and thus drastically limited their possibilities."

From The Highest in Us: "He turns no penitent one away. Would you, if you had paid so much in suffering? Would you ever give up? All doors that are locked against the Lord are locked by us."

From The Radiant Life: "[I]t is psychologically impossible to really believe that you are forgiven of the living God if you are still nurturing unforgiveness toward others."

On Beauty by Zadie Smith

4/10

This book was ok. I read it back in 2008 I believe. I remember not enjoying it that much but I was on a streak of bad books at the time which made this one seem better than it probably was. The storyline wasn't terrible, but whenever a story has college professors as some of the main characters then I am usually slightly annoyed because I feel like it's the writer's favorite dream to finally get to fully display how intelligent they are through the super smart professor(s). And professor characters are usually boring. I remember the characters not being very likable but that the writing was pretty decent. I wouldn't recommend this book but wouldn't discourage anyone from reading it either.

Ulysses by James Joyce

1/10

I finished this book today. It was the worst book I have ever read in my life. And I dare say that it is the worst book that I will ever read in my life. It is pure nonsensical gibberish. For 768 pages. I was amazed that a person could write so incomprehensibly. When you think about it, it is probably pretty hard to write sentences without having them make any sense. So to do that for 768 pages is a pretty spectacular feat. The book reads like it was written by a mentally challenged person who is drunk. It's bad. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. In fact, if you like this book, I cannot be friends with you. It's that simple. A person who likes this book is not a person I ever want to have a conversation with. Chapter 13 was the least terrible chapter. If every chapter were written like chapter 13 then it would still be the worst book I have ever read, but I could maybe be friends with a person who liked that kind of book. Chapter 17 started with some potential but quickly spiraled downward into the all-too-familiar pointless gibberish. I'm excited to move on and read my next book. This one wasted two months worth of reading. And it wasted two minutes worth of posting this on my blog.

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

4/10

So here's part 2 of the C.S. Lewis space trilogy books. I posted about the first book not long back. I read this some eight or nine years ago and don't really remember too much about it. I remember being slightly disappointed which is probably why I still have not read the third book. Seems like I should just read the third book already, but I haven't been able to bring myself to do it. I remember thinking this book was better than the first as far as the story line and the cool Christian symbolism that Lewis does. But I also remember thinking it was worse than the first book because it was twice as long as the first. And the third book appears to be twice as long as the second which is probably another factor scaring me away from it. Seems like other people like these books much more than me though, I must say.

Some quotes:

"As long as he did his best...God would see to the final issue."

"A stone may determine the course of a river."

"He died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no less."

The Tolkien Reader by J.R.R. Tolkien

4/10

This book is a collection of essays and short stories. I read it back in the fall of '05. I remember because the binding of my book has a crack in it after I slammed my fist on it after BYU lost to Boston College after one of the worst offensive performances I've ever witnessed and when Bronco Mendenhall inexplicably decided to punt halfway through the fourth quarter when they were down by three scores. It's true.

I wasn't crazy about most of it. My favorite short story in here was "Leaf by Niggle" which is about this artist who makes this beautiful and perfect painting. But he just can't stop adding to it. He keeps adding more and more trees and individual leaves to the painting. As I read it I couldn't help but think that it was kind of an allegory to his Lord of the Rings stuff and his Middle Earth creation. He writes these amazing books and he is so obsessed that he cannot help but keep adding to it by creating this world with an insane amount of detail. Just look at the Silmarillion with it's extreme amount of detail about the creation of Middle Earth, etc. It was an interesting short story and more happens in it beside him just painting.

This book also contains Tolkien's famous essay, "On Fairy-Stories." It's pretty interesting at times, but  I'm just not much of an essay guy.

I recall liking parts of the short story "The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son" as well.