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."

How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie

7/10

I read this close to ten years ago. And yet, I have very few friends and have influenced even fewer. So I must be doing it wrong. But the book is pretty good. It has lots and lots of good quotes and ideas. And should probably be read by everybody.

Here are the listed Principles discussed in this book:

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People
Principle 1: Don't criticize, condemn or complain
Principle 2: Give honest and sincere appreciation
Principle 3: Arouse in the other person an eager want

Six Ways to Make People Like You
Principle 1: Become genuinely interested in other people
Principle 2: Smile
Principle 3: Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language
Principle 4: Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves
Principle 5: Talk in terms of the other person's interests
Principle 6: Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely

Win People to Your Way of Thinking
Principle 1: The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it
Principle 2: Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong"
Principle 3: If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically
Principle 4: Begin in a friendly way
Principle 5: Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately
Principle 6: Let the other person do a great deal of the talking
Principle 7: Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers
Principle 8: Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view
Principle 9: Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires
Principle 10: Appeal to the nobler motives
Principle 11: Dramatize your ideas
Principle 12: Throw down a challenge

Be a Leader
Principle 1: Begin with praise and honest appreciation
Principle 2: Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly
Principle 3: Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person
Principle 4: Ask questions instead of giving direct orders
Principle 5: Let the other person save face
Principle 6: Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise"
Principle 7: Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to
Principle 8: Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct
Principle 9: Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest

So now go out there and win some friends and also influence some individuals as well while you're at it.

And now here are also a few good quotes:

"The world is full of people who are grabbing and self-seeking. So the rare individual who unselfishly tries to serve others has an enormous advantage. He has little competition."

"[Y]ou can make more friends in two months by becoming generally interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you."

"Most people don't remember names, for the simple reason that they don't take the time and energy necessary to concentrate and repeat and fix names indelibly in their minds. They make excuses for themselves; they are too busy."

"You can't win an argument. You can't because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it."

"The way to develop self-confidence... is to do the thing you fear to do and get a record of successful experiences behind you."

P.S. I am leaving on holiday and so this will be my final post of the year. Check back with me for another post on the second Sunday of 2016. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Fielding Smith

8/10

I finally finished this one a few days ago. It's a manual from a few years ago. Also, three of the manuals have 48 chapters and the rest have 24, except this one randomly has 26 chapters for some reason. It's obviously good, just like all of them. He is one of the more doctrinal focused prophets which I enjoy.

Here's a couple quotes:

"We sometimes hear the complaint, 'I haven't time.' But we all have time to read and study which is our solemn duty. Can we not arrange to find at least fifteen minutes in each day to devote to systematic reading and reflection? This would be but a trifling amount of time, yet it would be one hour and forty-five minutes in a week; seven and one-half hours in a month of thirty days, and ninety-one hours and a quarter in the year."

"The Spirit of the Lord will not continue to strive with the indifferent."

"The supreme act of worship is to keep the commandments."

"[O]ne of the chief purposes of our mortal probation is to see if we can learn with the spirit of prayer always in our hearts so that when the Lord chooses to speak, we shall hear his voice in our souls."

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll

4/10

I finished reading this to Mallory a little more than two weeks ago. I had been wanting to read a chapter book to Mallory for a while now and she got pretty pumped when I suggested this book because she is fairly familiar with the Alice story. She was really into it at first because she is mostly familiar with the start of the Alice story. But she certainly had moments of disinterest once it started getting to the more obscure parts of the story and the parts that are not in the movie. Plus, much of the story is super random, silly, and hard to follow logically that I also had my own moments of disinterest as well.

The book was so-so for me. I appreciated its originality/creativity and enjoyed a lot of the word play throughout but there are just a few too many over the top nonsensical moments for me to really get behind it as a whole. There sure are a lot of growing really tall and shrinking really small moments. Lewis Carroll, a.k.a. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, really is a super genius though. The word play antics were really quite something at times. One of my favorites is when the Duchess tells Alice this: "[A]nd the moral of that is - 'Be what you would seem to be' - or, if you'd like it put more simply - 'Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.'" Ha ha. There's for sure some good, fun, light-hearted and enjoyable moments.

Also, I learned that Tweetledee and Tweetledum are actually in the sequel "Through the Looking-Glass" and not the original "Alice in Wonderland." Who knew?

I will now post the classic Alice in Wonderland quote:

"'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
'I don't much care where -' said Alice.
'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat."

Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Wilford Woodruff

9/10

I like this one. I taught a few lessons from this one when I was called as an Elder's Quorum Instructor while I was home for the summer from University.  Two of the lessons I taught was the missionary work chapter and the journal keeping chapter. Those were fun chapters because he is known as being one of the best missionaries ever as well as one of the most thorough journal keepers ever. I like this book based on his thorough record keeping. There are so many detailed and interesting stories taken from his journals. Glad he wrote all that he did because our knowledge of many of the early events of the church come from him.

One quote from the missionary chapter which shows why he was such a great "converter of souls":

"[N]ever attempt to tear down a man's house, so to speak, before you build him a better one"

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

4/10

This is a great book cover, one of my favorites. I read this over a decade ago. I didn't much like it. But when looking back I think I was overly critical of it. It was very different from the Frankenstein we know today (that is, the guy with a bolt through his neck who walks like a zombie; and no, there is no Igor in this story). The Frankenstein in this book is a super intelligent creation, which makes him scarier when you think about it. I think I would like this book much better if I read it today than when I read it ten years ago. Plus, props to Mary Shelley for creating a horror story and monster that has lived on for generations.

I have one quote to share which is from the Intro to the 1931 publication written by Mary Shelley where she tells about what led up to her writing this story:

"Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself."

A young Joseph Smith was teaching the same principle about the creation of the universe at about the same time period.