I recently finished The Bible Now by Richard Elliott Friedman and Shawna Dolansky. Freidman follows his regular pattern of faking out potential buyers of his book by putting only “The Bible” in the title of his book even though he will only be discussing the Old Testament. As in previous efforts, his work here is sufficiently excellent that this trickery can be forgiven. (more…)
Since my Sista’ in Zion is dissing on Sheri’s little company over at T&S, I thought I’d give them some love. It is Christmas after all, and even Ms. Dew needs love at Christmas. So, in no particular order, here are the 10 books I have read the most that are published by Deseret Book.
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand is one of those books that a lot of people talk about so I figured I should get around to reading it. I finally did recently. Here is my review.
Grade: B
The Good
The book is a real page turner (even when you have it on your ipod). Weaknesses in prose notwithstanding I found myself really wanting to see what would happen next. That is a good sign with any book. It is heavy on philosophy and while others might not appreciate that I dug it.
The Bad
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I have recently picked up a new habit. I started checking books on CD out and listening to them when I can. I figured I’d post my thoughts on some of the books I read as a new series here at the Thang. My first book was Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
I was a little surprised by this book. There were parts in that book that were really funny. I was shocked when I found myself laughing out loud as Dickens amusingly described the adults surrounding young Pip (the main character) in the early parts of the book. I didn’t expect that at all going into this book written in 1861.
Grade: A-. (more…)
I’m going to be up front here, I do not normally purchase books published by Signature Books, due to the company’s controversial place in Current Mormon Culture. So you can read all my comments as someone who is biased by their culture to have a disposition to dislike Signature Books.
That said, Every Latter-day Saint who has even a remote interest in Church History should own at least this book. I am about 50 pages in and so far it has given me an insider’s view of: The Zion’s Camp affair, the Kirtland Safety Society, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, Early Temple worship, The Endowment, The 12’s Mission to UK, The Book of Abraham, and more. Woodruff is incredibly articulate and Staker does an excellent job of abridging the text to keep the pace quick and interesting.
Some highlights: (more…)
