The Peace Giver

There is a subtle self-deception going on in all of us. It is an absence of love, real love. Being the victim, putting ourselves “above” another simply because our weaknesses, or the way we manifest them, are different. We all mistreat each other at times. Sometimes without even knowing it. We lack judgement, fail to [...]

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What Did Paul Really Preach?

In the book What Paul Meant by Garry Wills, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book Lincoln at Gettysburg, I got an unusual interpretation of the writings of this early Apostle. At times Wills seems to go a little too far with surmises based on very little evidence. However, Paul is sometimes controdictory to a [...]

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Notes on “What Happened to the Cross?”

These are the notes I took while reading the book What Happened to the Cross: Distinctive LDS Teachings by Robert L. Millet. They are my interpretations and thoughts and are not specifically a recounting of what is in the book, nor may they be exactly what Brother Millet intended. However, I tried to stay faithful [...]

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Interesting Facets of a Complex Man

The unconventional approach taken by the authors of the book40 Ways to Look and Brigham Young makes for convenient and informative reading. They take an aspect of his personality, a particular way he was viewed by others, or simple hard data and put each into a series of 40 chapters. These chapters are not necessarily [...]

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Fanatically Unstable

Truman G. Madison once quoted a definition of religious fanaticism as “Someone who doubles his speed when he has lost his direction.” This is an apt description of Sidney Rigdon as portrayed by Richard S. Van Wagoner in his book, Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess. This book primarily deals with Rigdon’s relationships and [...]

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Unfulfilled Potential

I just finished reading Red River by Lalita Tadamy. This book is a fictional account of her forebears from the last events of Reconstruction after the the Civil War down to the early adulthood of her father. This book focuses mainly on the men of the family. I understand her previous book, Cane River, was mainly about [...]

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Travels in the Nursery

Author Bruce Feiler takes us on a journey through the cradle of civilization to investigate the people, culture, climate and historical record of the land where our Western conception of God was assembled. The book is filled with a wonderful variety of interviews with the personalities that make up today’s Middle East, from Egypt to [...]

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When You Blow Your Youth…

My Dad used to always tell me, “Don’t blow your youth!” What he means by this is that the habits and opportunities you develop or ignore in your youth will haunt you the rest of your life. Such is the case with Tony Hendra in this autobiography of sorts about himself and his attachment to [...]

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A Forgotten Past

Russell Shorto brings back to life the lost Dutch beginnings of New York City and the surrounding areas in this masterfully researched account. Much of his information is based on the surviving records of the Dutch West India Company and the legal records of the colony. These papers were written in Old Dutch, a lost language to [...]

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A Report from the Troops on the Ground

Testament is fast-paced and informative account of the Western campaigns of the Civil War based on the observations (through letters) of a common soldier—Webb Baker a great grandfather of the author who enlisted in Illinois and fought on the Union side of the Civil War for three years. Through his 70-some surviving letters home we [...]

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