Recent Reads

Some of the books that I’ve been reading lately are found in the Junior Fiction section of the library. One that really appealed to me was Witness by Karen Hesse. It’s written in an interesting format. Each character is given a page or two to make comments before another character chimes in on the action. The setting is a Vermont town that has been “invaded” by the Klu Klux Klan. The main characters are a young black girl and a little Jewish girl.


Other books I’ve read recently:

• Birth Marked
• The Mountain that Touched the Moon
•  Closed for the Season

Other adult books I’ve read all or parts of recently:

•  Journeys Through ADDulthood (Sari Solden)
• Women with Attention Deficit Disorder: Embrace Your Differences and Transform Your Life (Sari Solden)
• A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder—How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place (Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman)

Some of my favorite books in the last year or so:

• Darwin’s Black Box (Michael J. Behe)
• The Brain That Changes Itself (Doidge)
• Change Your Brain—Change Your Life (Dr. Daniel Amen)
• The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence (Gavin de Becker)

Books that I own that I have started reading or want to read:

• The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism (Michael J. Behe)
•  Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (Stephen C. Meyer)

 

The Gift of an Ordinary Day

I haven't even finished reading The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother's Memoir, but I would still recommend it. Katrina Kenison has touched me deeply with her insights into mothering, motherhood, self-hood, selfishness, change, time, and perspective.

    "It occurs to me that perhaps I don't have to push at life quite so hard after all, that sometimes the best thing we can do is allow our lives simply to take us where we need to go....
    "There are many things that I dreamed of once that I know now I'll never do. So many opportunities I missed, situations I failed to grasp, mistakes I made that will never really be righted. I carry some baggage, old ratty parcels packed with disappointment and regret. I've wasted too much time worrying, backsliding into fear, when I could have loved and lived more boldly. I've skimmed the surface of life when I could have been diving deep.
   "Yet there are also qualities of mind and heart in me that I am grateful for. I recognize, emerging slowly from beneath the layers, the optimism that has always made me me. My faith in other people, my eagerness to trust their motives and extend the benefit of the doubt. The sense of wonder that dawns as fresh in me each day as morning. The idealism that is both my nature and my gift. The creation of a self, it seems, even at this late stage of the game, is more a process than a project, more about opening and allowing than forcing and doing. Perhaps it does not have to be such hard work after all" (86-88).

I recognize in myself so many of the things she has to say. I feel almost depleted after reading a few chapters, as though I've been doing some deep soul searching. It's amazing. I know the book may not affect anyone else in quite this way, but I feel like she is writing about me in some way. She is helping me discover who I really am under all the facades and trappings of the roles I inhabit, willingly or otherwise, every day.

At the beginning of Chapter 5, "Doors," from which the preceding quote is taken, Katrina quotes Joseph Campbell, who says that the "privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." Katrina then comments,

     "...Not a day goes by that I don't still need to remind myself that my life is not just what's handed to me, nor is it my list of obligations, my accomplishments or failures, or what my family is up to, but rather it is what I choose, day in and day out, to make of it all. When I am able simply to be with things as they are, able to accept the day's challenges without judging, reaching, or wishing for something else, I feel as if I am receiving the privilege, coming a step closer to being myself" (62).

The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother's Memoir

Katrina Kenison

The Cost of Winning: Coming in First Across the Wrong Finish Line

This short non-fiction book by Dean Hughes caught my attention at Seagull Books. From the first chapter:

"I was teaching an adult Sunday School class some years back, and I asked the students to describe a 'good Mormon.' I got answers that had to do with compliance: church attendance, adherence to the laws of tithing and the Word of Wisdom, willingness to serve in Church callings, and so forth. But then I asked, 'What comes to mind when I say, "Good Christian"?'

"I got different answers.

"People talked about service, kindness, love, and looking after one’s neighbor. It’s worried me ever since to think that the answers differed as much as they did. It seems to me that the question for us should always be, 'Am I a follower of Christ? And if I am, how should I live?'” (Dean Hughes, The Cost of Winning: Coming in First Across the Wrong Finish Line, pp. 5-6.)

What's more important? Making the numbers look good or reaching out to those in need? Which should be our main concern?

37....Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets

 

Have Book, Will .....

Being a partial record of the many books I have read, am now reading, or plan to read. Also, a source of recommendations for those who are at a loss for something good to read.

I admit it. I am a confirmed bookworm. Long before I ever donned the dyed green bookworm costume that my mother created from a sheet (I won a Halloween contest with it), I was addicted to reading. Back then, I would rather find a cozy chair and read than do just about anything. It was, is, and always will be my escape from reality.

I read just about anything I can find, whenever, wherever, whatever. That includes cereal boxes at breakfast, shampoo bottles in the shower, billboards on the freeway, bumper stickers on passing vehicles (sometimes I regret reading those), and of course, books. Lots and lots of books.

Lately I've been focused on more non-fiction books, like The Gift of Fear and Darwin's Black Box. Last summer it was fantasy by Brandon Sanderson (The Mistborn series) and Carol Berg (the Transformation series).

I rarely go anywhere without a book if I think there's even the remotest possibility that I might have some time on my hands.