Books I Read in March 2018
It's hard to believe we're already a quarter of the way through 2018. Time goes incredibly fast. Good books help us make it along the way.
Here's what I read in March 2018.
Housekeeping: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson
This was, by far, my least favorite of Robinson’s novels. I could just never get into it. It was well written, and the story was interesting enough, I guess, but I never felt invested in it, nor in the characters. Perhaps I was too distracted reading it, and I was certainly sad to realize I didn’t enjoy it, but not every novel from one of my favorite authors will connect. None of this changes my recommendations of her other works.
Key Quote:
“There is so little to remember of anyone - an anecdote, a conversation at a table. But every memory is turned over and over again, every word, however chance, written in the heart in the hope that memory will fulfill itself, and become flesh, and that the wanderers will find a way home, and the perished, whose lack we always feel, will step through the door finally and stroke our hair with dreaming habitual fondness not having meant to keep us waiting long.”
Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer by C.S. Lewis
Lewis does fiction so well. This fictional account of correspondence on prayer is a unique look at prayer—its reasons, difficulties, effects, and hope. Lewis combines his wit with his intellect. His insights are piercing and his advice is helpful. Of course, the fact that this is fictional does not remove the lessons one can learn from it.
Key Quote:
“We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.”
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. And E.B. White
I want to always grow as a writer. In Stephen King’s classic, On Writing
, he recommends Strunk and White’s book more than once. I understand why. It is short, clear, and enduring. If you’re a writer who wants to grow, read this book and keep it close by for the long haul.
Key Quote:
“When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.”
Lila: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson
Robinson’s third book in the fictional town of Gilead focuses on John Ames’s wife, Lila. The woman veiled in mystery throughout the first two books is revealed in full. She’s complex and sympathetic. Abandoned by her family and taken in by a vagabond, Lila lives a nomadic, working life. Lila’s is a hard life, never full but never wholly empty. She doesn’t know how to trust, but why would she? One day she wonders into a church to get out of the rain and finds her future husband in the pastor preaching of things she doesn’t understand. Using Ezekiel’s image of the baby in the field, Robinson weaves the beauty of salvation into the story of unlikely love. “And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’” (Ezekiel 16:6)
Key Quote:
“Her name had the likeness of a name. She had the likeness of a woman, with hands but no face at all, since she never let herself see it. She had the likeness of a life, because she was all alone in it. She lived in the likeness of a house, with walls and a roof and a door that kept nothing in and nothing out.”
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
Lamott’s book is always on the lists of books writers should read. She is a very good writer, and her advice is sound. The most helpful part to me was her consistent talk of the difficulty of writing and the feelings after she was done with a project. I sympathize with her anxiety over the piece she sent in. I’ve never once sent something in and though, “They’re going to love it! Best thing anyone’s ever written.” It’s always, “What is this? I’m an idiot. I guess they could use the paper they print it on as scrap for the kids to color on.” Nevertheless, I still write. It’s never easy. But bird by bird, word by word, I keep going.
Key Quote:
“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.”
Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays by C.S. Lewis
Lewis’s book of journalistic essays is proof he can write anything and make it interesting. He has a way of creating characters, even if only for a moment, that feel real to the reader. He makes his points in ways other writers only dream of. He says what he wants to say with precision without losing any literary nuance or power. These essays reminded me of what a treasure Lewis was and still is.
Key Quote:
“Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.”
The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team by Wayne Coffey
I love the Olympics, both the summer and winter games. So when I saw this book on sale for Kindle, I picked it up. The 1980 US Hockey team is legendary, and even though I wasn’t alive at the time to witness their stunning victory over Russia, I heard about it my whole life. “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” is repeated with every Winter Olympic highlight reel. For very good reason. It was a miracle. A bunch of college kids knocked off the best team in the world. This book tells that story by taking you through the game and diving into the lives of each man. Coffey does a fantastic job giving us the real lives of these men—the good, the bad, and everything in between—and helping us see how, together, they became the heroes America needed.
Key Quote:
“The most enduring heroes are people who don’t try to be.”
How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds by Alan Jacobs
Jacobs’s book is a great achievement. It’s a short book that helps us think. Is there anything more needed today than the ability to think well? I think not. In a fractured world, the ability to think rightly is one of the great assets one can bring to the table. But the problem is that so many don’t care about thinking well. They just want to feel well. Thinking and feeling are not at odds, but if we aren’t careful, feeling can overtake us. To think well means we must face our feelings and interpret them through different lenses. If our only desire is to seek, kill, and destroy those on the other side, our ability to think will be greatly hindered. If, however, we seek to understand one another and are able to face the fear of being wrong, we will find that our ability to think increases a hundredfold. In this book, Jacobs does a service to us all. He disarms our need to be right and gives us tools to help us think.
Key Quote:
“The person who genuinely wants to think will have to develop strategies for recognizing the subtlest of social pressures, confronting the pull of the ingroup and disgust for the outgroup. The person who wants to think will have to practice patience and master fear”
Grant by Ron Chernow
Chernow’s biography of Grant is a masterpiece. It’s one of the best biographies I’ve ever read. Part of that may be my surprise at how misunderstood Grant was both in his own time and today, especially in the southern part of the US. Grant is not given the respect he is due in the South. He is seen as a drunk idiot who had numbers on his side during the Civil War. Robert E. Lee is the real hero for southerners but it is Grant who deserves the respect and honor of a great general. He may not have been the most important president in our country’s history, but he was certainly the most important general. For as bloody and devastating as the Civil War was, it could have been much worse had another man been running the army of the North. Grant was a gentle man who sought peace and equity to a world at war, both ideologically and physically.
Key Quote:
“Summing up Grant’s career, Frederick Douglass wrote: “In him the Negro found a protector, the Indian a friend, a vanquished foe a brother, an imperiled nation a savior.”
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
Westover’s life has been nothing short of remarkable. Growing up in a Mormon home separated from the world, she never went to school until the stepped foot on the campus of BYU. She taught herself enough to score a high mark on the ACT and parlayed that into a stint at Cambridge and Harvard. Westover is the America Dream in action, rising above her circumstances to achieve great things. But this story is not about her achievements. The title of the book is a bit misleading as well. You would think it’s about how she educated herself and arrived in the world. Instead, it’s a story of family and struggle. It’s about the hard things of life and how those hard things cut families off from one another and bring them back together. It’s a sad story in many ways, with hope sprinkled in when most needed. It’s a great book that takes you inside the family dynamics that can result when a father is an end-time prepper and the family is beset with mental illness.
Key Quote:
“My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”
Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?: Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock by Gregory Thornbury
Thornbury’s biography of Larry Norma was my favorite book this year so far. I had no idea who Larry Norman was until I read this. His story is amazing and tragic and confusing. The book was written so well I forgot I was reading a biography. I felt like I was living life alongside Larry Norman. When I reached the end I was sad it was over and wished so many things had worked out differently for him.
Key Quote:
“Larry Norman was a holy fool, often grossly misunderstood, certainly harassed—mostly by fellow Christians—and uniquely constituted to attract controversy. To put it both mildly and crudely, Larry Norman wanted it both ways; he wanted to rock and he wanted to talk about Jesus, he wanted to follow Jesus and to offend other followers of Jesus, for people to enjoy his music but also be discomfited by it. Larry Norman lived a life of fantasy, especially to people who consider themselves faithful believers. He pretty much did as he pleased. He sang about what he felt, made a living doing what he loved, countenanced to no authorities over him, and died a cult hero whose followers and family had to clean up the messes he left behind. Like Soren Kierkegaard’s self-understanding, he lived up to the moniker ‘that individuals,’ the person who is convinced that ‘wherever there is a crowd there is untruth.’”
The Pearl by John Steinbeck
Steinbeck’s story of Kino and the pearl is a tragedy taking the reader inside the evil of the heart. When the human heart desires something more than it should—fortune, for instance—it will do things unimaginable only moments before. Kino finds a pearl after his son is stung by a scorpion. This pearl will provide the necessary money to treat the sting under the hands of the town doctor. But Kino can’t part with the pearl though everyone tells him it is worthless despite it’s enormous size. Kino hides the pearl and fights off any who try to take it, even if those thieves are imagined. In the end, Kino loses his son, is driven from his town, and finds only despair at the end of fortune.
Key Quote:
“The people say that the two seemed to be removed from human experience; that they had gone through pain and had come out on the other side.”
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
One of my lifetime reading gaols is to read through all of Shakespeare’s works. I’ve read many before and I enjoy revisiting them from time to time. Shakespeare’s plays are about the only thing I remember from high school. I always loved them, even if they were hard to read at the time. This time, I listened to it on Audible. These are plays, after all, and listening takes us into the world Shakespeare created. The drama of the story is unending and it is one of the many classics Shakespeare’s pen created.
Key Quote:
“Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.”
This was, by far, my least favorite of Robinson’s novels. I could just never get into it. It was well written, and the story was interesting enough, I guess, but I never felt invested in it, nor in the characters. Perhaps I was too distracted reading it, and I was certainly sad to realize I didn’t enjoy it, but not every novel from one of my favorite authors will connect. None of this changes my recommendations of her other works.
Key Quote:
“There is so little to remember of anyone - an anecdote, a conversation at a table. But every memory is turned over and over again, every word, however chance, written in the heart in the hope that memory will fulfill itself, and become flesh, and that the wanderers will find a way home, and the perished, whose lack we always feel, will step through the door finally and stroke our hair with dreaming habitual fondness not having meant to keep us waiting long.”
Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer by C.S. Lewis
Lewis does fiction so well. This fictional account of correspondence on prayer is a unique look at prayer—its reasons, difficulties, effects, and hope. Lewis combines his wit with his intellect. His insights are piercing and his advice is helpful. Of course, the fact that this is fictional does not remove the lessons one can learn from it.
Key Quote:
“We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.”
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. And E.B. White
I want to always grow as a writer. In Stephen King’s classic, On Writing
, he recommends Strunk and White’s book more than once. I understand why. It is short, clear, and enduring. If you’re a writer who wants to grow, read this book and keep it close by for the long haul.
Key Quote:
“When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.”
Lila: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson
Robinson’s third book in the fictional town of Gilead focuses on John Ames’s wife, Lila. The woman veiled in mystery throughout the first two books is revealed in full. She’s complex and sympathetic. Abandoned by her family and taken in by a vagabond, Lila lives a nomadic, working life. Lila’s is a hard life, never full but never wholly empty. She doesn’t know how to trust, but why would she? One day she wonders into a church to get out of the rain and finds her future husband in the pastor preaching of things she doesn’t understand. Using Ezekiel’s image of the baby in the field, Robinson weaves the beauty of salvation into the story of unlikely love. “And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’” (Ezekiel 16:6)
Key Quote:
“Her name had the likeness of a name. She had the likeness of a woman, with hands but no face at all, since she never let herself see it. She had the likeness of a life, because she was all alone in it. She lived in the likeness of a house, with walls and a roof and a door that kept nothing in and nothing out.”
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
Lamott’s book is always on the lists of books writers should read. She is a very good writer, and her advice is sound. The most helpful part to me was her consistent talk of the difficulty of writing and the feelings after she was done with a project. I sympathize with her anxiety over the piece she sent in. I’ve never once sent something in and though, “They’re going to love it! Best thing anyone’s ever written.” It’s always, “What is this? I’m an idiot. I guess they could use the paper they print it on as scrap for the kids to color on.” Nevertheless, I still write. It’s never easy. But bird by bird, word by word, I keep going.
Key Quote:
“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.”
Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays by C.S. Lewis
Lewis’s book of journalistic essays is proof he can write anything and make it interesting. He has a way of creating characters, even if only for a moment, that feel real to the reader. He makes his points in ways other writers only dream of. He says what he wants to say with precision without losing any literary nuance or power. These essays reminded me of what a treasure Lewis was and still is.
Key Quote:
“Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.”
The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team by Wayne Coffey
I love the Olympics, both the summer and winter games. So when I saw this book on sale for Kindle, I picked it up. The 1980 US Hockey team is legendary, and even though I wasn’t alive at the time to witness their stunning victory over Russia, I heard about it my whole life. “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” is repeated with every Winter Olympic highlight reel. For very good reason. It was a miracle. A bunch of college kids knocked off the best team in the world. This book tells that story by taking you through the game and diving into the lives of each man. Coffey does a fantastic job giving us the real lives of these men—the good, the bad, and everything in between—and helping us see how, together, they became the heroes America needed.
Key Quote:
“The most enduring heroes are people who don’t try to be.”
How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds by Alan Jacobs
Jacobs’s book is a great achievement. It’s a short book that helps us think. Is there anything more needed today than the ability to think well? I think not. In a fractured world, the ability to think rightly is one of the great assets one can bring to the table. But the problem is that so many don’t care about thinking well. They just want to feel well. Thinking and feeling are not at odds, but if we aren’t careful, feeling can overtake us. To think well means we must face our feelings and interpret them through different lenses. If our only desire is to seek, kill, and destroy those on the other side, our ability to think will be greatly hindered. If, however, we seek to understand one another and are able to face the fear of being wrong, we will find that our ability to think increases a hundredfold. In this book, Jacobs does a service to us all. He disarms our need to be right and gives us tools to help us think.
Key Quote:
“The person who genuinely wants to think will have to develop strategies for recognizing the subtlest of social pressures, confronting the pull of the ingroup and disgust for the outgroup. The person who wants to think will have to practice patience and master fear”
Grant by Ron Chernow
Chernow’s biography of Grant is a masterpiece. It’s one of the best biographies I’ve ever read. Part of that may be my surprise at how misunderstood Grant was both in his own time and today, especially in the southern part of the US. Grant is not given the respect he is due in the South. He is seen as a drunk idiot who had numbers on his side during the Civil War. Robert E. Lee is the real hero for southerners but it is Grant who deserves the respect and honor of a great general. He may not have been the most important president in our country’s history, but he was certainly the most important general. For as bloody and devastating as the Civil War was, it could have been much worse had another man been running the army of the North. Grant was a gentle man who sought peace and equity to a world at war, both ideologically and physically.
Key Quote:
“Summing up Grant’s career, Frederick Douglass wrote: “In him the Negro found a protector, the Indian a friend, a vanquished foe a brother, an imperiled nation a savior.”
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
Westover’s life has been nothing short of remarkable. Growing up in a Mormon home separated from the world, she never went to school until the stepped foot on the campus of BYU. She taught herself enough to score a high mark on the ACT and parlayed that into a stint at Cambridge and Harvard. Westover is the America Dream in action, rising above her circumstances to achieve great things. But this story is not about her achievements. The title of the book is a bit misleading as well. You would think it’s about how she educated herself and arrived in the world. Instead, it’s a story of family and struggle. It’s about the hard things of life and how those hard things cut families off from one another and bring them back together. It’s a sad story in many ways, with hope sprinkled in when most needed. It’s a great book that takes you inside the family dynamics that can result when a father is an end-time prepper and the family is beset with mental illness.
Key Quote:
“My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”
Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?: Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock by Gregory Thornbury
Thornbury’s biography of Larry Norma was my favorite book this year so far. I had no idea who Larry Norman was until I read this. His story is amazing and tragic and confusing. The book was written so well I forgot I was reading a biography. I felt like I was living life alongside Larry Norman. When I reached the end I was sad it was over and wished so many things had worked out differently for him.
Key Quote:
“Larry Norman was a holy fool, often grossly misunderstood, certainly harassed—mostly by fellow Christians—and uniquely constituted to attract controversy. To put it both mildly and crudely, Larry Norman wanted it both ways; he wanted to rock and he wanted to talk about Jesus, he wanted to follow Jesus and to offend other followers of Jesus, for people to enjoy his music but also be discomfited by it. Larry Norman lived a life of fantasy, especially to people who consider themselves faithful believers. He pretty much did as he pleased. He sang about what he felt, made a living doing what he loved, countenanced to no authorities over him, and died a cult hero whose followers and family had to clean up the messes he left behind. Like Soren Kierkegaard’s self-understanding, he lived up to the moniker ‘that individuals,’ the person who is convinced that ‘wherever there is a crowd there is untruth.’”
The Pearl by John Steinbeck
Steinbeck’s story of Kino and the pearl is a tragedy taking the reader inside the evil of the heart. When the human heart desires something more than it should—fortune, for instance—it will do things unimaginable only moments before. Kino finds a pearl after his son is stung by a scorpion. This pearl will provide the necessary money to treat the sting under the hands of the town doctor. But Kino can’t part with the pearl though everyone tells him it is worthless despite it’s enormous size. Kino hides the pearl and fights off any who try to take it, even if those thieves are imagined. In the end, Kino loses his son, is driven from his town, and finds only despair at the end of fortune.
Key Quote:
“The people say that the two seemed to be removed from human experience; that they had gone through pain and had come out on the other side.”
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
One of my lifetime reading gaols is to read through all of Shakespeare’s works. I’ve read many before and I enjoy revisiting them from time to time. Shakespeare’s plays are about the only thing I remember from high school. I always loved them, even if they were hard to read at the time. This time, I listened to it on Audible. These are plays, after all, and listening takes us into the world Shakespeare created. The drama of the story is unending and it is one of the many classics Shakespeare’s pen created.
Key Quote:
“Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.”
