Tuesday, December 06, 2005
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
Since it's Christmas-time, I wanted to read something Christmas-y. I haven't read this book since I was a wee beastie, so I broke out the book Saturday. Yep, it's still a fun, good story.
Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman
Excellent.
History just isn't something that interests me, especially American history after the Revolutionary War (ancient Greece and Rome are much worse than American history and make me want to poke my eyes out with a spork, but Europe earlier than 1200 AD and Asian history are quite fascinating). Thus, Church history gets folded into the category of "boring" and I generally ignore it. But this book was such the hot item, I gave in and read it. I learned quite a bit from the book. Nothing was particularly shocking; I love studying LDS doctrine, and Church history gets sprinkled in when you study that. However, it provided more detail and context than I'd previously known.
Context is the thing Bushman is quite good with, and it makes all the difference. He provides a contextual interpretation of why Joseph did what he did and how he became who he was. He firmly places Joseph in the human category, and yet as believing readers, we see how he was a prophet despite his humanity. It's inspiring, actually, providing hope to us mere mortals who hope to be great (or even just kinda good and not a waste of carbon).
History just isn't something that interests me, especially American history after the Revolutionary War (ancient Greece and Rome are much worse than American history and make me want to poke my eyes out with a spork, but Europe earlier than 1200 AD and Asian history are quite fascinating). Thus, Church history gets folded into the category of "boring" and I generally ignore it. But this book was such the hot item, I gave in and read it. I learned quite a bit from the book. Nothing was particularly shocking; I love studying LDS doctrine, and Church history gets sprinkled in when you study that. However, it provided more detail and context than I'd previously known.
Context is the thing Bushman is quite good with, and it makes all the difference. He provides a contextual interpretation of why Joseph did what he did and how he became who he was. He firmly places Joseph in the human category, and yet as believing readers, we see how he was a prophet despite his humanity. It's inspiring, actually, providing hope to us mere mortals who hope to be great (or even just kinda good and not a waste of carbon).
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