Books

 



      The books I reserved a few days ago are at the library. I'm very excited to read them. Two of them were referenced on a podcast I like to listen to. I reserved one of them because I was curious. Then fourth book I reserved because I watched the movie version of the book, but never read the book. Since most of the time the book is better than the movie, I thought I should read it.

     The first two book are "Rage Becomes Her" by Soraya Chemaly and "Atlas of the Heart" by Brene Brown. These books were quoted in a podcast episode on anger and how angry woman is usually used as an insult. I had something happen recently that has made me angry, reading the first book seems like a good idea.  Brene Brown is quoted on the podcast a lot. I'll be honest, I wasn't really interested in anything she wrote because I didn't think it was applicable. However it seems she is very popular and a few women I respect are big fans. I thought it would be interesting to read one of her books. 

     The third book is "Counting the Cost" by Jill Duggar Dillard and Derick Dillard. I'll admit to a little curiosity about the Duggar family. I never watched any of their shows, but did follow the news about them for a bit.  The uber conservative beliefs held by the head of the family have made me a little uneasy. Also as a feminist, any system that requires women to submit to their husbands and treats them more like property than as human beings is sick making. I've seen families much smaller have problems when older siblings are required to parent younger sibling and where no one gets much meaningful time with their parents. Add  to that having to grow up on TV and maybe not having a whole lot of privacy. It just seems like a hard way to grow up.

    I read "Becoming Free Indeed" by Jinger Duggar Vuolo last year. It was interesting to read. "Counting the Cost" came out at the same time I read the first book. I planned to reserve it, but the hold list was over 20 people long. I decided to wait. In the meantime I watched the documentary "Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets". It was fascinating. It also helped me to understand the bad reputation Christianity has received the past several years.

    The last book is "Sense and Sensibility" by Jane Austen.  I watched the movie of the same name with Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant many years ago and like it a lot. In fact, I have the DVD of the movie. I don't remember ever reading the book. 

   It is not the first Jane Austen book I read. A few years ago, I was talking about books with a woman I knew. I said that I didn't like Jane Austen books because I didn't like "hand wringing women."  It turned out that Jane Austen happened to be this woman's favourite author. As penance, I read "Pride and Prejudice" which was a good read. While I'm still not a Jane Austen fan, preferring Mercedes Lackey and Robert B. Parker, I admit I was stereotyping her works.

   It's not raining today so it is a good day to walk to the library and start reading.

    




   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Simple Things

     C and I usually have a date day or at least part of a date day once a week. It's a time where we spend time with each other doing something fun or maybe simply having lunch out. Since Thursday was Thanksgiving and neither of us felt like eating out, we decided to go out for a hot chocolate.   Right before we left C had an idea. We should get our hot chocolate and also share a peppermint shake from Chick-fil-A. He said the the combination of the hot chocolate and the cool peppermint shake would be really good. I thought it was overkill, but agreed to do it.    After dropping a loaf of bread off at a friend's house we went through the drive through to get the hot chocolate. When I have a choice I usually get dark chocolate. It's not quite as sweet and has lots of flavour. C always gets milk chocolate. Then we went to Chick-fil-A. C went inside and picked up our preordered shake. It was topped with whipped cream and a cherry. I asked C if he wanted to cherry. He said no s
Read more

A Letter to RB

     Lent is usually the time to focus on repentance seeking forgiveness from God.  I've subscribed to a couple of Lenten meditations. One of them mentioned that along for asking forgiveness from God, it is a good time to ask for forgiveness from others and to forgive those you haven't yet.     I took an opportunity to write a letter asking for forgiveness from the Relief Society president that I served with until we were released about six months ago.  She responded with a letter essentially accepting my apology, a great relief to me. It also occurred to me that should also take care of another piece of unfinished business. I needed to forgive, truly forgive, the boys that bullied me in high school. Some of you may think that taking more than 36 years to forgive something is a bit too long and maybe it is. For years I thought I'd forgiven them and moved on, but what I really did was just put it in a mental box and put the box on a shelf. Every once in awhile something woul
Read more

Released

   A few weeks ago I was asked to stay after a Ward Council meeting. Normally it's a meeting I don't attend, but the Relief Society president was out of town and one of my duties was to sit in for her on such meetings. I was fairly sure I knew what it was going to be about.     After the meeting I stayed behind while everyone had left. It was just me and one of the bishop's counselors. We sat in some chairs at one side of the bishop's office. He told me that I was going to be released from my calling as a Relief Society counselor. The release was going to be announced at Sacrament meeting (what the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints call their worship service.) that would take place in about 20 minutes. I'm sure I startled the counselor with my expression of joy and relief at what he told me. I'm sure he was expecting me to be upset and bewildered. Usually one knows about a release at least a few days before it happens.     I had a feeling that this was
Read more