A Bit on the Side by William Trevor

3/10

I read this in 2008 I believe. And I read it before the birth of my first son which I named Trevor William. It's true. I did not name my son after William Trevor. In fact, I had forgotten all about this author's existence and did not make the connection until somewhat recently.

Anyway, this is a collection of 12 short stories that are pretty boring and uneventful for the most part, in my opinion. As I look over the stories, the only one that I remember really liking was "An Evening Out" which was fantastic. The others were mostly unmemorable. But, I must not have disliked these stories too much because somewhere down the line I acquired another William Trevor book that I have yet to read.

Conclusion: It was not great as demonstrated by my inability to recall 11 of the 12 stories. It was not terrible as demonstrated by the excellence of 1 of the 12 stories and by my future acquisition of another book from the same author.

One quick line from a story titled "Solitude":

"Dark nourishes light's triumphant blaze"

Mormon Doctrine by Bruce R. McConkie

9/10

I read this on the mission in 2003. This book is a classic. It really is great. It's very thorough, very comprehensive, and yet each topic is fairly concise for the most part. Except "Signs of the Times" which goes on for several pages. It's a good book to learn more about common topics like "Prayer" and "Faith" but also great for random topics that you've never heard of or thought about. And there are scripture references galore for everything. It's just a good book to be used for scripture and gospel study.

There are tons of quotes that could be shared and I even had several chosen, but I decided to only share this one which is found in the topic "Vicarious Ordinances":

"Salvation is based on the vicarious atoning sacrifice of Christ.... He acted on man's behalf, that is, vicariously, paying the penalty for our sins on condition of repentance, ransoming us from the effects of Adam's fall."

Already to Harvest by Hartman Rector, Jr.

3/10

Lets kick off this new year with a post about my least favorite church book that I have ever read. I didn't totally hate it, but it's fair to say that I didn't like it. I read this on my mission back in 2004. 

It was a good book in the sense that it encouraged you to be a good, hard-working missionary and had some good thoughts about how to make that happen. But I was mainly turned off by how over-the-top it went with the you should baptize infinity people each month lectures.  The stories of missionaries baptizing 25 people per month and writing down a long list of ridiculous goals like: "We conclude each day with the satisfaction that another person has been baptized!" made the book seem unrealistic and brought the book from a good missionary tool to parody territory. I guess I just got annoyed reading this book, while serving a mission in the Bible Belt, about how if only I was a good missionary then I should be baptizing a person every single day. I probably should have just ignored those parts and just tried to focus on the principles being taught. Maybe next time.

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.