The Mormon Monk

By now it should be obvious what this blog does--it discusses topics of books and religion (mostly) in ways that I hope are interesting to you, my devoted readers. However, if you have questions about books and/or religion and or general topics that you would like me to address, I would be happy to take requests in an effort to better please you, the reader. I have plenty to say without your help--but I also have a vested interest in providing material that you'd like to read. So send in your suggestions if you have a question you want answered, a book you want discussed, or a pressing need to criticize my syntax. I write for you (mostly)!

While visiting family in Massachusetts, I was the only individual lucky enough to capture my brother Aaron's experiment with facial hair on film. As you can see, it would have been tragic for his Bruce Willis in 16 Blocks- esque 'stache to go without preserving it for posterity. I liked Aaron's mustache--but apparently I was the only one. From what I heard, not even Aaron was particularly fond of the look, despite the fact that his mustache would allow him to intimidate witnesses in court without speaking a word. My mother, in particular, objected to Aaron's mustache for religious reasons; she believes that we should all emulate the example of the prophets and apostles in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, who are clean shaven. She also served a three year mission for the church with my father in Tampa, Florida, making sure that all of the missionaries under her supervision remained clean shaven (a requirement)--so you can imagine that she feels strongly ...

And now, without any further adieu, the best of the rest from 2004: 5. Othello , William Shakespeare. A biracial marriage between the black Othello and the white Desdemona--still in its honeymoon phase--sours quickly when Othello's lieutentat, Othello, insinuates that Desdemona has been unfaithful. There's a rather explosive ending, but I won't spoil it, on the off chance that someone doesn't know what happens here. I feel like something of a heathen, since what I consider to be the Bard's best play doesn't make it higher than this--but then I remember that Othello is, after all, a play, not a book. There's something about the greatness of any play that is lost as soon as you remove it from the stage. Sure, you could read this classic tale of jealousy aloud (much better than Anna Karenina , which would probably be my second pick for books on "jealousy"), but you can never capture in mere words the sort of tension that mounts in a live production a...

I know that there are probably at least two people dying for the last five books of my 2004 top ten, and I promise to return to that topic shortly. But for now, I want to introduce a new theory of relativity--a theory that you will care about much more than Einstein's. This theory comes from Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational , a book that will undoubtedly be making my top ten in 2008 (though that's getting a bit ahead of myself). Ariely reminds us of something we already understand intuitively--that we make judgments in relative terms. We can identify the color teal only in terms of blue and green; teal has a little bit more blue than green, and a little less yellow. You can't evaluate teal in terms of red and purple, because teal does not share any identifiable characteristics with those colors. Similarly, Ariely argues, we look at faces and people in relative terms. After recounting several experiments he conducted, Ariely provides dating and marriage advice. Da...

As a graduate student earning a PhD in Enlish, I have adopted D&C 88:118 as the theme of my current and prospective career as a teacher: "And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith." Of course, there are so many books printed each year that even a monk cloistered on a windswept peak of Tibet who did nothing but read all day and night could never keep up with the printing presses. So if you cannot possibly read everything, how can you know what books are "best" and make available a small amount of time to read them? You could ask me. Now, I can't read every book any more than my imaginary Tibetan monk can, but I do read much more than most people, and I can tell you which of the many books that have engrossed me are the best (and why). Since 2004, I have made notes on each of the various books that I have read, and I wou...

As previously mentioned, my accident in early May forced me to abandon my plans of doing light construction work this summer and to adopt an alternative form of employment. As a result, I have been working for an organization based in UNC-Chapel Hill’s library system called DocSouth, which stands for “Documenting the American South,” since mid-June. The organization’s goal is to preserve and make publicly available the texts and images that best capture southern history (so naturally, they hired a transplanted Yankee to determine what artifacts best represent southern life). If you are into history, I would encourage you to visit their website—it’s a great resource: www.docsouth.unc.edu . The long and short of my new employment is that I spend 25 hours each week reading slave narratives and writing summaries of them, so that DocSouth users will be able to determine which texts they want to read in full. In the course of my work, I’ve learned a lot about nineteenth-century American cul...

A funny thing happened on my way to work two months ago--I was hit by a car while riding a bicycle. At the time, I was less than thrilled. My accident left me without a job for the summer and with a concussion, serious road rash, a fractured pelvis, a police citation, and $16,000 in medical bills ($2,500 after medical insurance). My exciting ambulance ride notwithstanding, this was not a particularly fun experience, and the painful weeks that followed were hardly more so. But I've always been told that hindsight is 20/20, and the perspective of two months has helped me see the events of May 6, 2008 in an entirely new light. I am now very grateful for the accident that left me with a considerably lighter wallet and scars on all four limbs because that experience helped me appreciate the virtue of kindness. Before my accident, I had always thought of kindness as an attribute whose primary manifestation was an absence of hostility. Kindness meant not making a snide comment about the o...