Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

6/10

I just finished reading this to Mallory and Trevor last night. I liked it. It was "cute." My kids liked it ok. On most nights I could get a page or two in before they would lose total interest. I think if I read it to Mallory by herself then it would have been better because she would have been able to stay focused longer. But I liked the uplifting story of Charlotte's creative efforts to save an ordinary farm pig. And E.B. White had a fun writing style with this story. I was familiar with the story, obviously, but it was nice to finally read the whole tale.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

8/10

I just finished reading this yesterday. I had heard about this book series for a while and recently purchased the three books in the series from the local library for 50 cents each. Now I can start another book series and fail to finish it. Good times.

This book was pretty good. I enjoyed the detective-style uncovering of a serial killer plot line. The revenge against business tycoon plot line was less enjoyable, but really only took center stage for the final 100 pages-ish. It felt a lot like The Return of the King where the story peaks when the ring is destroyed and it feels like the book should be over but there are 300 pages more to go somehow. In Larsson's book, the serial killer is discovered and handled but the story goes on. The rest of the story was fine and it does tie up any and all loose ends, but it's just slightly anti-climatic.

Also, I had a hard time liking the girl in this book. I was hoping she would be a quirky and anti-social type that is likable, but mostly she was just a straight up weirdo. I didn't dislike her but was hoping she would be a cooler character to root for.

The book is also pretty racy, a bit too much for my delicate sensabilities. But all in all, it was a fun thriller that I enjoyed reading. It was also a nice change of pace for me since I had read nothing but lengthy Victorian novels for at least a year straight.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

8/10

I finished this book last night. It had been ages since I last read a Dickens novel for some reason. I think this is my first since I got married back in '09. It was good as expected because, as the writer of the Intro says of Dickens, "He can do many things with words." True statement.

I must say, I was a little surprised to learn that this is considered by many to be Dickens' best. I liked it for sure, and it has mostly good characters with random idiosyncrasies as usual with Dickens, but this one was a bit tough at times. I think it took me a while to get used to the separate narrators with Esther telling part of the story and the third-person narrator telling other parts. I felt like the book definitely picks up momentum and gets better as the story moves forward as some secrets are unearthed. There was the weird spontaneous combustion part that seemed out of place with such a realistic depiction of England and its people and circumstances they face. I did feel like most of the characters in this one were slightly more realistic than many Dickens characters in other novels.

All in all, it was a good book. I don't think it is possible for me to dislike a Dickens book, he's just too good.

I've decided I want to rank the six Dickens books I've read:

1. David Copperfield
2. A Tale of Two Cities
3. Great Expectations
4. Oliver Twist
5. Bleak House
6. A Christmas Carol

And here are two quotes:

This one is David O. McKay-esque: "[I]t is right to begin with the obligations of home, sir; and that, perhaps, while those are overlooked and neglected, no other duties can possibly be substituted for them."

And here is a funny one of a character with a different take about Bees: "There was honey on the table, and it led him into a discourse about Bees. He had no objection about honey, he said (and I should think he had not, for he seemed to like it), but he protested against the overweening assumptions of Bees. He didn't at all see why the busy Bee should be proposed as a model to him; he supposed the Bee liked to make honey, or he wouldn't do it - nobody asked him. It was not necessary for the Bee to make such a merit of his tastes. If every confectioner went buzzing about the world, banging against everything that came in his way, and egotistically calling upon everybody to take notice that he was going to his work and must not be interrupted, the world would be quite an unsupportable place."

Middlemarch by George Eliot

7/10

I finished this book a little less than a week ago. It was a doozy. It's my second George Eliot book and I didn't like it as much as Silas Marner. I liked Middlemarch ok. George Eliot's writing is not quite like the other Victorian writers. It has it's similarities, but there's something about it that makes it less smooth for some reason. The words seem to flow naturally off the quill pens of most other Victorian writers. Her writing is good, and I enjoy it for the most part, but it's just more difficult to read. There are several quotes on Middlemarch from others at the end of the book and Anthony Trollope (another Victorian writer) says quite well what I think is pretty accurate: "I doubt whether any young person can read with pleasure either Felix Holt, Middlemarch, or Daniel Deronda. I know that they are very difficult to many that are not young.... It is, I think, the defect of George Eliot that she struggles too hard to do work that shall be excellent. She lacks ease." Those last three words are perfect. She lacks ease. But she is pretty genius and I still appreciate her writing.

As for the book, the story definitely had moments that were quite interesting, but also had some lengthy dull moments. The last 150-200 pages of this near-800 page novel were the best part of the book. It reminds me of eating barbecue ribs. A lot of work to get to the meat on the bone. It's a lot of work to get to the meat of the story, but by the end of the meal I was sufficiently satisfied and would eat another meal of ribs (i.e. read another Eliot novel) in the future.

Because I feel bad for being somewhat critical of her writing, I will share several quotes that I like to make up for it:

"I can at least offer you...the faithful consecration of a life which, however short in the sequel, has no backward pages whereon, if you choose to turn them, you will find records such as might justly cause you either bitterness or shame."

"We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, 'Oh nothing!' Pride helps; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our hurts - not to hurt others."

"[T]he mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it."

"I cannot regard wealth as a blessing to those who use it simply as a harvest for this world."

"There are characters which are continually creating collisions and nodes for themselves in dramas which nobody is prepared to act with them. Their susceptibilities will clash against objects that remain innocently quiet."

"The fact is unalterable, that a fellow-mortal with whose nature you are acquainted solely through the brief entrances and exits of a few imaginative weeks called courtship, may, when seen in the continuity of married companionship, be disclosed as something better or worse than what you have preconceived, but will certainly not appear altogether the same."

"[V]ery little achievement is required in order to pity another man's shortcomings."

"There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire: it is hardly a passion, but a blight bred in the cloudy, damp despondency of uneasy egoism."

"Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure."

"[A] man could choose not only his wife but his wife's husband!"

"[G]oodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy."

"I made up my mind to like sermons, and I set out by liking the end very much. That soon spread to the middle and the beginning, because I couldn't have the end without them."

"Scenes which make vital changes in our neighbors' lot are but the background of our own, yet, like a particular aspect of the fields and trees, they become associated for us with the epochs of our own history, and make a part of that unity which lies in the selection of our keenest consciousness."

"I think we have no right to come forward and urge wider changes for good, until we have tried to alter the evils which lie under our own hands."

"[B]y desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil - widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower."

"[T]he soul of man, when it gets fairly rotten, will bear you all sorts of poisonous toad-stools, and no eye can see whence came the seed thereof."

"Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self."

"[I]t is in these acts called trivialities that the seeds of joy are forever wasted, until men and women look round with haggard faces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, the earth bears no harvest of sweetness - calling there denial knowledge."

"Her anger said, as anger is apt to say, that God was with her - that all heaven, though it were crowded with spirits watching them, must be on her side."

"[O]ppositions have the illimitable range of objections at command which need never stop short at the boundary of knowledge, but can draw forever on the casts of ignorance."

"A man conscious of enthusiasm for worthy aims is sustained under petty hostilities by the memory of great workers who had to fight their way not without wounds, and who hover in his mind as patron saints, invisibly helping."

"[T]he little waves make the large ones and are of the same pattern."

"[W]isdom is not his strong point, but rather affection and sincerity. However, wisdom lies more in those two qualities than people are apt to imagine."

"Lydgate was in debt; and he could not succeed in keeping out of his mind for long together that he was every day getting deeper into that swamp, which tempts men towards it with such a pretty covering of flowers and verdure. It is wonderful how soon a man gets up to his chin there - in a condition in which, in spite of himself, he is forced to think chiefly of release, though he had a scheme of the universe in his soul."

"What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult to each other?"

"'[C]haracter is not cut in marble - it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.' 'Then it may be rescued and healed'"

"[T]he growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

Update

May I have your attention please. I have created a new blog. The link can be found on the right side of the page. I will continue to post every Sunday, unless I am out of town or something. My Sunday post will be as follows:

1. I will post on my book blog if I finish a book.
2. If I have not finished a book, but attended a new MLB stadium, then I will post on my stadium blog.
3. If I have not finished a book or attended a new MLB stadium, my posts will be at my new Seinfeld blog.

Thank you for your kind attention to this matter.

Charlotte and Emily Bronte: The Complete Novels

7/10

I just finished reading this last night. Mallory picked it for me because she loves the name Emily. It is a collection of five novels written by two of the Bronte sisters. Charlotte wrote four of the novels and Emily wrote one, Wuthering Heights.

Here are my rankings of the novels:

1. Jane Eyre

I really, really loved this novel. Everything about it was fantastic. The Jane character was great and encountered many other great characters along her life's journey. I have nothing but praise for this book. It was easily my favorite novel in this collection.

2. Wuthering Heights

I really liked this novel as well. It is much darker than Jane Eyre, or the other novels for that matter. But I always enjoy exploring characters with dark motives and actions. And this novel had a few of those type of characters. It was really well done. My only complaint is a minor one (and one that will be hard for me to explain), but it bothered me throughout the story: Much of the story is told to the narrator by a servant; one character often referenced throughout the story spoke with very, very poor English; and the servant in relaying the dialogue from this character would then herself speak in that very poor English while telling the story; every time and for several paragraphs; seems like if she were telling a story to the narrator she would explain to the narrator how this particular character spoke poorly, etc. and then after such a preface would then just talk normal herself; but no, I had to imagine this servant lady talking in way broken English impersonating a certain character while she sat by the fire telling this tale to the narrator. Again, this is only a minor quibble, but it did bother me for some reason. But the novel is still pretty awesome.

3. Villette

This one is ranked next because it had a few different relationships between characters that I really enjoyed. The young Polly/young Graham relationship at the beginning of the novel was great. The Lucy Snowe (the first-person narrator)/Ginerva Fanshawe was my clear favorite. I always loved the parts when those two were together. The Lucy Snowe/Paul Emanuel relationship was also great, especially at first. It was a good book overall, but not great. I really, really didn't like how much French was used throughout. I was like, "Um, I don't speak or read French, so I don't know anything that is being said in this way long conversation."

4. The Professor

This was Charlotte's first book written, but never published until after her death. It's alright, but nothing special. It too has a few good character relationships. I loved the William Crimsworth (first-person narrator)/his older brother relationship. The older bro was a punk to him and treated him poorly, but it was an interesting thing to observe and read such a curious relationship between brothers. The other good one was William/Hunsden. It became an increasingly interesting relationship as the novel progressed, but really became great once William got together with his wife, thus becoming the Mr. and Mrs. Crimsworth's/Hunsden. This book also had way, WAY, too many discussions written in French. I wish my book at least had footnotes to translate what was being said.

5. Shirley

This one was also so-so. The Caroline and Shirley characters were good, but it just seemed like a lot of pointless characters were introduced throughout the novel. This is the one novel where my mind would wander and had a number of pretty boring and seemingly unnecessary chapters. But, surprisingly, it seemed like this one had a lot of pretty good lines and quotes, more than a lot of the others.


So those are my rankings. The first two are must-reads. The other three are all similarly average for the most part. I am really interested in the Bronte's lives and their struggles. I want to read a biography on the family, or the one by Elizabeth Gaskell on Charlotte Bronte's life.

This post is already long, but I wanted to share several quotes as well. Read on if you can muster it:

From Jane Eyre:

"Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned"

"It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you."

"Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world."

"If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends."

"Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognise our innocence... and God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward."

"[A] memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure - an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment."

"Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour"

"Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones."

"Humility... is the groundwork of Christian virtues"

From Wuthering Heights:

"Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves."

"A person who has not done one half his day's work by ten o'clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone."

"If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable." "Because you are not fit to go there, I answered. All sinners would be miserable in heaven."

From Shirley:

"If I had a means of happiness at my command, she thought, I would employ that means often; I would keep it bright with use, and not let it lie for weeks aside, till it gets rusty."

"Nothing refines like affection. Family jarring vulgarizes - family union elevates."

"[A] sweet countenance is never so sweet as when the moved heart animates it with compassionate tenderness."

"Sincerity is never ludicrous; it is always respectable. Whether truth - be it religious or moral truth - speak eloquently and in well-chosen language or not, its voice should be heard with reverence."

"Men and women never struggle so hard as when they struggle alone, without witness, counsellor, or confidant; unencouraged, unadvised, and unpitied."

"We have none of us long to live: let us help each other through seasons of want and woe."

"[W]hen people are long indifferent to us, we grow indifferent to their indifference."

"God mingles something of the balm of mercy vein in vials of the most corrosive woe. He can so turn events, that from the very same blind, rash act whence sprang the curse of half our life, may flow the blessing of the remainder."

From Villette:

"We should acknowledge God merciful, but not always for us comprehensible. We should accept our own lot, whatever it be, and try to render happy that of others."

From The Professor:

"I watch, I toil, I pray; Jehovah, in his own time, will aid."

"But the man of regular life and rational mind never despairs. He loses his property - it is a blow - he staggers a moment; then, his energies, roused by the smart, are at work to seek a remedy; activity soon mitigates regret. Sickness affects him; he takes patience - endures what he cannot cure. Acute pain racks him; his writhing limbs know not where to find rest; he leans on Hope's anchors. Death takes from him what he loves; roots up, and tears violently away the stem round which his affections were twined - a dark, dismal time, a frightful wrench - but some morning Religion looks into his desolate house with sunrise, and says, that in another world, another life, he shall meet his kindred again."

"A man is master of himself to a certain point, but not beyond it."

Aesop's Fables

6/10

So I finally finished another book. Thus, my post this week is on this blog and not on my MLB stadiums blog.

I read this entire thing to my daughter, Mallory. It took us ages to finish, I think more than two years. She worshipped the first one which was "The Fox and the Grapes" about the sour grapes. She only wanted me to read that one. She would say, "Read the one about the yucky grapes." Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there. She just never really got into these fables. I thought she would love stories about animals playing tricks on each other and such shenanigans, but she didn't. I mean, look at those rascals on the book cover. Oh well, you win some and you lose some. In her defense, most of them were fairly boring and the language was much more advanced than I thought it was going to be.

The intro to this book was pretty interesting, talking about theories on who Aesop was and how these fables came about. I did not read the intro to my daughter, just the fables.

There are quite a few classic fables in here which was always fun to stumble upon. And the fables with "moral of the story" at the end were always nice and tied up the fable succinctly.

Now we are trying to figure out the next book to read together. I am pushing for "The Chronicles of Narnia," but she seems to want to save those for later for some reason. It will be a tough decision for sure.

Update

I have made 196 posts but have not read any more books. Thus, this blog will only receive updates when I finish new books. But I have created a new blog (link on right side of the page). If I don't post here then I will post over there, hopefully once per week. Feel free to check it out my fellow fans of America's Pastime.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

10/10

I read this more than a decade ago. And I believe it is the first book that I am posting for this blog in which I read a borrowed copy. All the others have been books that I own. I now own this book, but I have never read my owned book. Therefore, I have no underlined passages to search for in order to share fun quotes.

I really love this book. It's one of my favorites. It is supremely creative, original and hilarious. And it is the only fictional novel that my brother has read that he has enjoyed. He's more of a political book type of guy. But he was currently in the army performing inane and pointless tasks repeatedly. I told him he must, MUST! read this book. He relented. And loved it.

The only issue with the book is that it does have a few risqué moments that I could have done without. Other than that, Catch-22 is as flawless as it gets.

Teachings of Presidents of the Church: David O. McKay

8/10

I read this several years ago. It is a church manual from back in 2003 or thereabouts. It is good, just like all the others. President McKay seemed like a real swell guy.

This is the last "Teachings" book for me to post. For those keeping score, that means I have read 11 of these. For the even more observant, it means that I have read all of them except the Lorenzo Snow and George Albert Smith books (and Howard W. Hunter which just started this year). I've read about half of Snow and about 1/4 of G.A.S. I'll get to them someday.

A few quotes from Pres. McKay:

"No other success can compensate for failure in the home." You know I'd go there.

"What the spirit is to the body, God is to the spirit. When the spirit leaves the body, it is lifeless, and when we eliminate God from our lives, spirituality languishes."

"What a man continually thinks about determines his actions in times of opportunity and stress."

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

5/10

I read this book probably about nine years ago. It was alright. The story was interesting at times, involving a false sexual assault accusation by a British woman accusing a native Indian Muslim in the 1920's or thereabouts. Racial tensions abound.

The writing was decent. I don't remember much else but know that it is not a book that I readily recommended to anyone at any point in my life. And also that I have been hesitant to read other E.M. Forster books based on my reading of this one. So maybe I didn't much care for this book all that much after all.

Some lines from the book:

"Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate."

"God would give me more when he saw I gave."

"[N]o atmosphere of sin surrounded him."

"[T]he hands of the clock move forward, not back."

Romeo and Juliet & West Side Story

8/10

I read this several years ago. Romeo and Juliet is the last Shakespeare play I read prior to reading the Complete Works but have not posted on the blog. So this marks my final Shakespeare play post. But, as you have probably figured out by now, I happened to read a book that had the play West Side Story immediately after Romeo and Juliet. It was fairly interesting seeing the similarities between the two plays.

Romeo and Juliet is one of my favorites. Really. In fact, I rated it as my 5th favorite Shakespeare play. I always try to convince myself not to like it because it's a sappy love story. But I guess I'm just a sucker for young love. Or, it actually has tons of cool lines and characters. And I think it's a fun story.

I enjoyed reading West Side Story as well. My main memory from West Side Story was the time when we watched it over at the Leatherwood's and we all covered our eyes when Maria and Tony kissed, except Laura Leatherwood caught me peeking through my fingers. I have lived with the shame of this experience ever since.

Here now are a couple lines from Romeo and Juliet:

"Being one too many by my weary self..."

"Young men's love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes."

"[L]ove's heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams"

"The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Therefore love moderately, long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow."

"Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill."

"The heavens do lour upon you for some ill;
Move them no more, by crossing their high will."

The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope

8/10

I finished reading this yesterday. Anthony Trollope is a lesser-known Victorian period author. Or at least lesser-known today. He was a big deal back in his day. I recently decided that Victorian literature is my favorite. And I am happy to have found another good Victorian author to read.

This was a good book and very well written for my tastes. Trollope can get wordy at times but so do many of the authors from the Victorian period. If you can write well then write all you want I say. Who am I to say you shouldn't have written so many pages/chapters? This book was just over 800 pages and was exactly 100 chapters. I enjoyed most of it. The first 200 pages were slow-going as the story was trying to get established and the last 100 pages were a slight let-down. But the other 500 pages in the middle were definitely very solid.

This book had a slew of characters with intertwining story lines dealing with corruption and dishonesty in both the professional and personal lives of many of the characters. It felt very Charles Dickens-ish but instead of dealing with the poor, lower-class it dealt with high society knavery.

The title to this book is perfection. Despite being written in the 1870's, I felt like the book may as well have been about how we live today. So it was an accurate title for how they lived then and continues to be an accurate title for how we live now with the greed, scheming, lack of morals, selfishness, etc.

Although I liked it, I wouldn't recommend it to just anyone. You have to enjoy reading old, classic, lengthy novels.

Here are several lines that I liked:

"[C]ensure from those who are always finding fault is regarded so much as a matter of course that is ceases to be objectionable."

"[S]he had in her countenance a full measure of that sweetness of expression which seems to imply that consideration of self is subordinated to consideration for others."

"Even the attempt to plough the ground was a good work which would not be forgotten."

"[S]he had become punctual as the hand of the clock."

"'[P]ray, don't put it off; you don't know how many slips there may be between the cup and the lip.'"

"The horror of every agony is in its anticipation."

"There is nothing like wiping out a misfortune and having done with it."

"Men will hardly go to heaven... by following forms only because their fathers followed the same forms before them."

"The world perhaps is managed more justly than you think"

"There is no duty more certain or fixed in the world than that which calls upon a brother to defend his sister from ill-usage."

"A liar has many points to his favour, - but he has this against him, that unless he devote more time to the management of his lies than life will generally allow, he cannot make them tally."

"One seems inclined to think sometimes that any fool might do an honest business. But fraud requires a man to be alive and wide awake at every turn!"

"Those who depart must have earned such sorrow before it can be really felt."

"He had so often lied to her that she had had no means of knowing whether he was lying then or telling her a true story."

"[I]njustice must of course be remedied by repentance and confession."

"It was her pride to give herself to the man she loved after this fashion, pure and white as snow on which no foot has trodden."

"It wants two men to make a quarrel."

"[I]f he loved the girl it was his duty as a man to prove his love by doing what he could to make her happy.... What did love mean if not that?"

Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Ezra Taft Benson

8/10

I finished this one over the holidays. I was able to keep up with the lessons for the most part throughout the year with a few slip ups. This is another winner. Jam packed full of awesome prophetic teaching. Contains his great C.S. Lewis-esque talk on pride as well as lots of teachings on one of his favorite topics, the Book of Mormon.

Also has some interesting info about his time as Secretary of Agriculture under Eisenhower. President Benson would start each meeting with a prayer and said "[W]hen you start a meeting that way, people aren't stuck up with the pride of their opinions." He also said, "Unlike the political opportunist, the true statesman values principle above popularity and works to create popularity for those political principles which are wise and just."

I did a quick scan for quotes and came up with the following to share:

"When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives. Our love of the Lord will govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our time, the interests we pursue, and the order of our priorities."

"Happiness must be earned from day to day."

"The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.... Yes, Christ changes men, and changed men can change the world."

"Over one-half of all the verses in the Book of Mormon refer to our Lord.... He is given over one hundred different names in the Book of Mormon. Those names have a particular significance in describing His divine nature."

"The greatest events of history are those that affect the greatest number of people for the longest periods. By this standard, no event could be more important to individuals or nations than the resurrection of the Master."