Summer Reading 2009 (ongoing)

[Tuly]

The False Prince: Book 1 of the Ascendance Trilogy by Jennifer A. Nielsen - I enjoyed this adventurous mystery book. Actually I really liked it a lot.

Amazon's book description:
In a discontent kingdom, civil war is brewing. To unify the divided people, Conner, a nobleman of the court, devises a cunning plan to find an impersonator of the king's long-lost son and install him as a puppet prince. Four orphans are recruited to compete for the role, including a defiant boy named Sage. Sage knows that Conner's motives are more than questionable, yet his life balances on a sword's point -- he must be chosen to play the prince or he will certainly be killed. But Sage's rivals have their own agendas as well.

As Sage moves from a rundown orphanage to Conner's sumptuous palace, layer upon layer of treachery and deceit unfold, until finally, a truth is revealed that, in the end, may very well prove more dangerous than all of the lies taken together.

[Tuly]

What Would a Holy Woman Do? - by Wendy Watson Nelson. Elder Russell Nelson's wife wrote this short book. I was able to understand the meaning of 'holy' more. I liked the book.

When Your Prayers Seem Unanswered - By S. Michael Wilcox. This is a collection of brother Wilcox talks, including his fourth watch talk. I thoroughly enjoy Wilcox's books.

[Tuly]

Steal Like An Artist - 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon - Catchy title and actually a very interesting book. John and I read it together, it's a short book. There are many things that we actually know about being creative that this book mentioned. By the way here are the 10 things about being creative.
1. Steal like an artist.
2. Don't wait until you know who you are to get started.
3. Write the book you want to read.
4. Use your hands.
5. Side projects and hobbies are important.
6. The secret: do good work and share it with people.
7. Geography is no longer our master.
8. Be nice. (the world is a small town)
9. Be boring. (it's the only way to get work done)
10. Creativity is subtraction.

[Tuly]

Spiritual Lightening - How the Power of the Gospel Can Enlighten Minds and Lighten Burdens by M. Catherine Thomas. I almost did not purchase this book because of it's unappealing cover and dare I say book tittle. I am very grateful I read this book. Sister Thomas was in our PVI ward in Provo when we were newlyweds and I believe sister Thomas was one of Ian's religion teachers. I have learned a lot from this book. Here is a quote from her book.

One important truth is that our husbands, our wives , and our children were not given to us to satisfy us, and nor were many of the most important events of our lives. To the world, love is a relationship in which the parties involved satisfy each other enough that they can call that relationship "love." But this is not love at all - it is just self serving. We can tell that our love is often based on the degree to which another satisfy us: if they don't satisfy us, we criticize them.

[Bryn]

I have not done as much reading as I would like this summer, but I am just about done with les miserable (spelling?) and have read some manuals about real estate. I am also getting into a book about mythology and will likely start a new thread on the topic sometime soon.

[Tuly]

I'm sure you all read something this summer. I would love for you to share those articles, manuals,etc. Here is my last contribution for this summer. This book is pretty well known with junior high kids - the first of a series of four books...certainly somewhat better than Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which describes a lot of what are youth are exposed to.

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger. Indeed this is a strange book.

http://origamiyoda.com/

[Tuly]

Since it is June - I'm starting our summer 2014 reading club. I loved this quote by President Ezra Taft Benson -

Today, with the abundance of books available, it is the mark of a truly educated man to know what not to read. "Of making many books there is no end" (Ecclesiastes 12:12). Feed only on the best. As John Wesley's mother counseled him: "Avoid whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, takes off your relish for spiritual things, . . . increases the authority of the body over the mind."

The fact that a book is old does not necessarily make it of value. The fact that an author wrote one good work does not necessarily mean that all his books are worthy of your time. Do not make your mind a dumping ground for other people's garbage. It is harder to purge the mind of rotten reading than to purge the body of rotten food, and it is more damaging to the soul.

Most novels and pulp magazines are filled with a lot of rubbish, and most TV and a lot of radio programs are a waste of time, if not corruptors of morals or distorters of truth. The less newspapers have to say of value and of truth, the more pages they seem to take to say it. Usually a few minutes is more than sufficient to read a paper. One must select wisely a source of news; otherwise it would be better to be uninformed than misinformed. The subscribers of some mass magazines and newspapers are ever reading but seldom able to come to a knowledge of the truth in the areas of most vital concern. - President Benson.

I finished reading one of the better books on marriage advice. How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It - by Patricia Love, Ed. D., and Steve Stosny, Ph.D.. This is a simplification of the book but the main idea of the book is to show how women are hypersensitive to Fear, Isolation, & Deprivation, and men are hypersensitive to Shame & Dread of Failure. This was a good read to me.

[Edward]

This week I read I Capture the Castle, which was nice but not as lovely as reviews would have indicated, and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, which was superb, and left me aching for more books of similar stature and significance. I also read The Fault In Our Stars, which was not at all impressive despite my affection for its author, and also I read Shakespeare's Cymbeline (which was awful), Measure for Measure (which was passable), and finally Othello - which somehow I made it till now without reading, and it is certainly very powerful and very tragic and very sad and so I decided that was enough of THAT and will be taking a Shakespeare-break of a few weeks before I let the Bard depress me again. I intend to read The Woman In White next, if they have a copy at the library tomorrow, which I hope they do.

[Tuly]

A Tangle of Knots by Lisa Graff. A Tangle of Knots was told from multiple character point of views. As the story plays out we get to see how the fate of these characters are very carefully woven together like a knot. This book was ok but my favorite part of the book was all the cake recipes by one of the characters Cady - a young girl that loves to bake.

[Tuly]

The Turnip by Walter da la Mare illustrated by Kevin Hawkes - Lovely children's book. Good story with good morals.

[Tuly]

Anybody else reading out there?

The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap: A Memoir of Friendship, Community, and the Uncommon Pleasure of a Good Book - by Wendy Welch
I loved this book. Bibliophiles will love this book. Charming book makes me wish I could open a bookstore...sigh.

[Steve]

 
How to Live on 24 Hours a Day - Arnold Bennett

This short book written in 1910 can be read in one sitting (and is available for free on Gutenberg.org: LINK). Bennett's voice is very entertaining—you could certainly read this for pleasure instead of treating it as any sort of productivity guide. However, despite its amusing tone, the book does make one think about how we use the time allotted us. I really enjoyed this one.

[Edward]

I finished The Woman In White this week - what a masterful book!i was not prepared for how gripping and facinating the story was, and knowing nothing about the novel beforehand, I must say I was absolutely enthralled. If you haven't read it, DO!

After that I read through three animal books (two general encyclopedias and an extremely interesting book on polar bears) and a book on early American art. Then I read Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and its companion novel Starry River of the Sky. The latter is, as I find out, actually a prequal, and so I didn't quite understand the placement of its events till I was already a third of the way through, which may have contributed to the fact that I enjoyed Mountain more than Starry River, but don't misunderstand - both are exquisite books. They are classified as "children's books," but as with all such works I think that only refers to the accesible reading levels, for these are books every adult should read.They are intricately woven and beautifully simple folk tales, and their focus on values such as family, gratitude, and forgiveness make them especially resonant. Pick them up when you get the chance! They are superb read-aloud choices if you have children.

[Steve]

Edward: They are classified as "children's books," but as with all such works I think that only refers to the accesible reading levels, for these are books every adult should read.

2 quotes by C. S. Lewis:

1) "I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story. The good ones last. A waltz which you can like only when you are waltzing is a bad waltz."

2) "Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But then into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development: When I was ten I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

[John]

true.