Considering the Cross by John Hilton III

 

9/10

The photo of the book cover isn't uploading for some reason. I'll try later and update it if I can. This was a great book on a very interesting topic. We often have the tendency in the Church to focus on Gethsemane, so it was really nice to see such a thorough examination of the role the crucifixion plays in the atonement. Its importance should be obvious, but it was good to be reminded. I also liked seeing the history of the Church's teachings involving the crucifixion and how it has always been taught properly. The history of the cross and details about crucifixion itself were also insightful. Just endless insights and interesting connections. There are several insights I could bring up, but the one that comes to mind as I type this is the connection Hilton III made about when the Roman soldiers were casting lots for Christ's clothes as he was dying for their sins and how they didn't even realize it: "Do we ever miss the sacred because we're thinking about trivial things? For example, as the sacrament is being blessed and passed, are our minds riveted on our Redeemer? Or are we like these soldiers, too preoccupied with mundane matters to notice the importance of what is happening right in front of us?" So many cool insights like this throughout that make this a highly recommended read.

Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger

8/10

I need to read more documentary books. I seem to always enjoy them. This one was no different. Going in, I had some background knowledge having watched the Billy Bob Thornton movie and the entire television series, which was surprisingly good for the most part, at least the earlier seasons. I also served my mission in Houston, Texas and was in a small town called Sealy, home of Eric Dickerson, for about 4.5 months, and that little town was obsessed with their high school football team which always amused me. Friday nights there would definitely shut down the city as everyone was at the football game. The book does a good job in getting you to know the main characters. As a sports fan, I enjoyed the parts where the game action was described in detail and wished there was a bit more of that, but I expect he only did that where it was necessary seeing as how many of their wins throughout the season were blowouts with less excitement. Surprisingly, I came away with a better understanding of Odessa and West Texas itself during that time period and its economic struggles during an oil slump after a previous boom, and I found that to be a nice bonus. Overall, this is a book with interesting subject matter for something that is hard for a lot of people to comprehend who aren't immersed in a life where high school football means so much to entire communities. It was interesting getting to learn a bit about this unique world.
 

Shadow of the Giant by Orson Scott Card

 

6/10

It's literally been 16 years since I read the previous book in this series. This is the fourth book in the Ender's Shadow series. Back in the day, this was the final book in the series but I guess there are one or two more now? Anyway, I've been meaning to get to this one for a long time, obvs, but I have this weird pattern of not being able to finish off the last books in a series. It's never a good sign when you have to read summary's of the prior books in the series to remind you of any of the characters and prior plot lines. Nonetheless, we read it and it was fine. Nothing too noteworthy or exciting takes place. Lots of war games and political strategy. The longer the book went the more I was ready for it to conclude. It was like a game of Risk, but instead of watching people play Risk, you are watching them talk about playing Risk. Glad to have finally read this one though, but now I have to look into these additional books that are now in the series. It makes sense that other books were added because there were definitely story lines that were left open and I could see some opportunities for some interesting storytelling based on what was left open, mainly with the lady who is raising Achilles's child and of course with Bean and his children on the spaceship. Hopefully I can get to those other books soon, but it realistically could be another decade from now.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

 

8/10

I waffled between giving this one a 7, and if I did decimals it would probably be more like a 7.5. It's basically an absolute floor of 7 based on the premise of the story alone. All Wilder had to do was not fumble it, have somewhat interesting characters at certain parts, and it's good enough for an 8. And that's what we had here. One of my favorite opening lines to a book that I've read in a long time: "On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below." I'm locked in after an opening line like that. The rest of the book deals with the lives of those five individuals and what led them to be on the bridge at that moment and a Priest's quest to determine whether those souls "deserved it" or if they were simply "called home early" depending on whether they were good or bad people. That's a simple generalization by me to the book dealing with the age-old question about the level of God's involvement in tragedies.  Apparently, Wilder drew on a biblical passage in writing this book, Luke 13:4, which reads, "Or those eighteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem?" Also, apparently, at the memorial service in New York for British victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, British Prime Minister Tony Blair chose to read the closing sentences of this book: "But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning." Interesting stuff. As for the five characters who precipitated into the gulf below, the first two victims were the least interesting to me, an older lady and her servant. The next victim was the most interesting, a twin who had recently lost his brother and was down in the dumps leading up to the tragedy. The final two victims were fairly interesting, an older guy and the young son who was just joining the old man as an apprentice of sorts. Like I said, because of the fantastic premise of this story, just have somewhat interesting characters and this book gets an 8 for me.

Thornton Wilder books I've read, ranked:

1. The Bridge of San Luis Rey
2. Three Plays 

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

 

6/10

I really wanted to love this book and I tried and convinced myself for a very long time to love it. But by the end there was no denying that this one is just flat out average. I think the first part of this book introducing Jude and his hopes and dreams, including his eventual unplanned marriage and separation, is the best part of the book. Unfortunately, not a whole lot transpires after he moves to Christminster where he always dreamed of living. His initial efforts there are interesting, but once he meets his cousin and love interest, Sue, it is all downhill from there. The book is pretty much one big long and harsh commentary about the institution of marriage. I still liked Hardy's writing which, along with the enjoyable first part of the story mentioned above, was enough to get this one a 6/10.

Thomas Hardy books I've read, ranked:

1. Tess of the D'Urbervilles
2. The Return of the Native
3. The Woodlanders
4. Jude the Obscure 

 

George Washington's Secret Spy War by John A. Nagy

 

3/10

This book is very poorly written. It is very thoroughly researched, but someone (ideally the editor?) needs to tell the author that you can't just regurgitate and barf out every minute detail you have ever researched and think it will come out as an interesting story that people can follow. The info at the very beginning about Washington's involvement in the French and Indian War was fairly interesting. I bumped it to 2 stars as an acknowledgement of the vast amount of research performed and increased it up to a 3 because he actually finally presents a coherent and interesting story in the last few chapters and in the conclusion. My advice to anyone thinking of reading this would be to only read the final few "Deception Battle Plan" chapters and the "Conclusion" chapter. The rest is a huge waste of time.  

Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri

 

9/10

This was a very enjoyable book. Told from the perspective of a child, it covers the author/narrator's life growing up in Iran, becoming a refugee, and living in Oklahoma, with a lot of family/cultural history weaved throughout. This was a very unique book where the author's voice was very distinctive. I enjoyed the weaving of the stories and patchwork presentation and how it tied to the imagery of the weaving of the Persian rugs and patchwork story and memories of a refugee and the telling of the stories in the 1001 Arabian Nights. I also liked how the book title came from The Lord of the Rings, surprisingly. He mentions the part where Sam sees Gandalf come back after thinking he was dead, "And Sam thinks maybe all the sad parts of the adventure will come untrue." That was a fun little discovery. Very solid and very enjoyable book. Another one I would highly recommend to really any reader of any age.

Lots of great quotes and thoughts throughout; here's a few:

"If we can just rise to the challenge of communication -- here in the parlor of your mind -- we can maybe reach across time and space and every ordinary thing to see so deep into the heart of each other that you might agree that I am like you. I am ugly and I speak funny. I am poor. My clothes are used and my food smells bad. I pick my nose. I don't know the jokes and stories you like, or the rules to the games. I don't know what anybody wants from me. But like you, I was made carefully, by a God who loved what He saw. Like you, I want a friend."

"It's a miracle that anyone would ever fall in love with someone else and -- of all the people in the world -- that person loves them back. Like if you fell off a building and landed in a pillow truck, somehow."

"Making anything assumes there's a world worth making it for."

"[H]ow many Christians do you know who give a tenth to the church?"

"It seemed so obvious that everything was already eternal. That something made all of it."

"[T]he only way to stop believing something is to deny it yourself. To hide it. To act as if it hasn't changed your life."

"Love is empty without justice. Justice is cruel without love."

"He's a God who listens as if we are his most important children, and I think He speaks to tell us so."

"[A]bove all other laws is the law of love."

"Reading is the act of listening and speaking at the same time, with someone you've never met, but love. Even if you hate them, it's a loving thing to do. You speak someone else's words to yourself, and hear them for the first time. What you're doing now is listening to me in the parlor of your mind, but also speaking to yourself, thinking about the parts of me you like or the parts that aren't funny enough. You evaluate, like Mrs. Miller says. You think and wrestle with every word."

"[W]hat you believe about the future will change how you live in the present."