Cornucopia

Read-gifting

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So which books molted beneath your tree and emerged Christmas morning? Let’s have them all, the good, the bad, the remaindered and the regifted.

Here’s my list:

Rough Stone Rolling, by Richard Bushman (and yes, it’s embarrassing to admit that I haven’t read it yet)
Discourses of President Gordon B. Hinckley, vol. 2
Amen: Speaking in Church with Purpose & Peace, by Celeste Elain Witt
The Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Edition, ed. Grant Hardy
German Cookery
The Food of Portugal
and the LDS Library 2006 CD-Rom from LDS Media and Deseret Book, containing hundreds of devotional, historical, doctrinal, and reference titles. Zowee!

68 comments for “Read-gifting”

  1. Thanks for the heads up on the CD. I’ve been using Gospel Link 2001, even though it is a bit unweildy. This has most of the resources that I need from Gospel Link; Words of Joseph Smith, Messages of the FP, Collected Discourses, JD, the periodicals, etc. Please do let us know how usable it is, so I can decide whether or not to get it.

  3. I did receive “Rough Stone Rolling” and can’t wait to get started. But it’s going to have to wait until I finish the other book I received– “Now I Can Die in Peace” about the Red Sox finally winning the World Series. Life is all about priorities.

  6. Mmmm…food of Portugal. Make some Bacalhau for me! I got the massive 3 vol. Complete Calvin and Hobbes book set! That’ll give me months of Spaceman Spiff, deformed snowmen, and hectic wagon rides while spouting philisophical idealisms. I’m set!

  7. Not so many books as gifts this year:

    – Frank W. Fox, J. Reuben Clark, The Public Years, Brigham Young University Press, Provo, Utah, 1980.

    – T. Edgar (Ted) Lyon, Jr., T. Edgar Lyon: A Teacher in Zion, Brigham Young University Press, Provo, Utah, 2002.

    – Celeste Elain Witt, Amen: Speaking in Church with Purpose & Peace (2005).

  8. Critical Terms for Religious Studies (Mark C. Taylor), Religion after Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos (Steven M. Wasserstrom), The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture (Bart D. Ehrman), Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Jonathan Z. Smith)

  10. Most of those who love me have long since given up buying me books without my approval beforehand, since most of the stuff I want comes from various university catalogues, and I am annoyingly persnickety about editions. But I did get one utterly unexpected and very cool book from my father: a reprint of the original 1908 edition of Lord Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys. I don’t know what possessed him to give me this, but it is a wonderful and weird read. It includes more than I ever would have realized that I needed to know about the Edwardian approach to fighting savage tribesmen, tracking escaped convicts, surviving a shipwreck, and incontinence.

  11. Your father hit the jackpot, Russell Fox. What a cool, quirky gift. More and more I think that next to my own father yours would be my preferred role model.

  12. I got:
    Writing with Hitchcock by Steven DeRosa (from my wife)
    Heroes of the Book of Mormon by Toni Sorensen Brown (from my folks)

    I gave:
    The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan (to my wife)

    Like Tim J. says, life’s all about priorities. I’m 50 pages into the Hitchcock book and I haven’t even touched the Book of Mormon book.

  13. 8
    I could have used that last week during Christmas shopping ~ “the Edwardian approach to fighting savage tribesmen [fellow shoppers], tracking escaped convicts [where did that temp-help clerk go?], surviving a shipwreck [parking-lot manuvers], and incontinence [waiting in check-out line].”

  14. Besides the obligatory “Rough Stone Rolling” and “Lengthen Your Stride”, Santa also left “American Pastoral”, “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde”, and “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time” (which was excellent). Thanks, Santa!

  15. The Schottenstein Interlinear edition of Tehillim (Psalms).

    I’m still waiting to get a hold of some Genesis commentary volumes I want.

  18. Alas, Rosalynde, Santa spent his Christmas budget on a Treo for this recovering Blackberry addict. (Kaimi’s two-sentence review — I like it, mostly, but I haven’t yet been able to get the e-mail function to work. If/when I do that, I’ll never be heard from again). I already had RSR, anyway.

    But perhaps there will be a Hannukah book or two under the menorah. The GBH volume sounds good; Elisabeth’s quirky selections sound cool; and Russell’s dad is a genius. ANd then there are the cool foreign books that they talked about at Kulturblog lately. I have book envy).

    On the other hand, I really hope that there’s a memory card under the menorah, so that I can play mp3’s on my Treo. :)

    Tim,

    Sounds like an interesting book. Personally, I need to find myself one of those shirts that I saw once at Penn Station, which had written (under a Red Sox logo):

    “Back-to-back-to-back — 1918 . . . 2004 . . . 2090.”

    What could be better than that? :P

  20. Tom,

    You gave your wife book one of an eleven-book (and counting) series, each of which clocks in at around a thousand pages, and whose author is guided by the mantra “rather than resolving any of the plot lines with my existing characters, I’ll just introduce several dozen new characters and subplots per book”?

    You’re a cruel, cruel man.

    Might as well point her to some links now. Hmm, http://www.encyclopaedia-wot.org/ is not a bad start.

  21. Good luck with that whole thousand ways to cook bacalhau, Rosalynde. What no one is willing to admit is that none of those thousand ways are any good. Does your book have any recipes for Bolicao or Dancake? Those are Portuguese, aren’t they? After all, what could be more Portuguese than prepackaged hot-dog buns with chocolate inside?

  22. I had recently heard of that “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-timeâ€? book. It involves an autistic boy, doesn’t it? I’m just beginning on this path of understanding what the diagnosis means for my daughter. Heck, I don’t really even know what kind of therapy and all that she needs. BUT hearing about this book, gave me hope that if people are writing stories, and writing them WELL, ie., finding out what it’s really like (well, there’s all sorts of different ways people can be, when they are autistic; I just hope for accurate portrayal) will be easier for the general public.

    The only book I got (shocking! I go through books like candy!) was, “Christmas Jars”

  24. I bought, for myself, for Christmas,

    Teacher Man (Haven’t read it yet), but what’s not to love about this guy?
    Why Do I Love These People (devoured it in one day)
    Marley & Me (we have Marley’s evil twin at our house)
    Christmas Jars
    and the latest one by Sheri Dew by a person who doesn’t know me very well. She is not my favorite author. In fact, I’ve written her a 6 page critique of her work. I haven’t had a chance to mail it yet, but I’m going to.

    Oh, yeah, and one by Robert Millett, “You’re Farther Than you Think” or something like that. Sheri could use some contact with Brother Millett.

    The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time is a great book. I leant it to my neighbor, who annoys me with her fixation on Anita Stansfield. The last time I leant her a book, she was shocked. It wasn’t even that bad. I don’t think she read TCIOTDITNT. But what a wonderful book. It made me laugh out loud.

    I browsed through 1776 and thought, “I should read this” and I saw a guy looking at it sitting on the leather couch at Costco and thought, “oh, yeah, you’re just trying to look well read. so transparent.” And I put it back.

  25. Costanza, that book on Eliadi and Scholem sounds intriguing. If you want to guest post a report on it on my blog, let me know. I’ve looked at it a few times myself. Ehrman’s book looks intriguing as well. I listened to the NPR interview with him on Fresh Air and found it really interesting.

  26. danithew (#19) asked: How’s that readers-edition of the Book of Mormon?

    Hardy’s book is excellent for approaching the Book of Mormon from a reading (as opposed to studying) perspective. He formatted the text into paragraphs, added quotation marks, and divided the text into logical blocks. He also combined passages that span two or more verses into single sentences, and his blocks ignore Orson Pratt’s chapter breaks; both of these restore the natural flow of the text.

    It makes reading the Book of Mormon a real joy. I recommend it.

  27. Berreby, David; Us and them: Understanding your tribal mind, Little, Brown & Co., NY: 2005

    Keller, Thomas; Bouchon, Workman Publishing, NY: 2004

    Bushman, Richard Lyman; Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, Knopf, NY: 2005

    Sebold, Alice; The Lovely Bones, Little, Brown & Co., NY: 2002

  28. Constanza, sounds like you’re really into religious studies–as a hobby? grad student? if the latter, what program are you in?

  29. Mike, it sounds good to me. I’ve been thinking about reading the Book of Mormon with at least an awareness of the old chapter divisions as well as the new ones. My approach has been to divide the Book of Mormon into what I call units as well as chapters. The units simply represent the old chapter divisions … so 1 Nephi 1-5 becomes Unit 1, etc.

  30. “The Curious Incident” is a fabulous book written from the perspective of a 15 year-old autistic boy. I highly recommend it. However, for those of you who are easily offended by profanity, there are a few offensive four letter words peppered throughout the dialogue. And skip lines 20-24 of page 167.

  31. Boynton, Sandra; Belly button book, Workman Publishing, NY: 2005
    Boynton, Sandra; But not the hippopotamus, Little Simon, 1982
    Sabuda, Robert, & Reinhart, Matthew; Encyclopedia prehistorica dinosaurs: The definitive pop-up (Hardcover), Candlewick, 2005
    Sabuda, Robert; Winter’s Tale : An Original Pop-up Journey (Hardcover), Little Simon, 2005
    Sharmat, Marjorie; Nate the great, Yearling, 1977 (reissue)

    Where do you folks all find the time to read books with actual chapters in them?!?!?!

  32. The book club in my ward read “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time” based on our one non-member’s recommendation. It’s a great book, however there’s lots of x-rated swear words in it (I swear, it uses words you don’t even hear in an r-rated movie). Since my book club consists of mostly sweet gray-haired old ladies, I read it absolutely cringing everytime a swear word was used.

    We did discuss how the author used the swearing as a literary device, though, not just gratuitously.

    The only books exchanging hands this Christmas in our house was a Dilbert book, a Calvin & Hobbes book, a manga book, a learning-katakana book, a how-to-line-draw book, and a Fox Trot book. (From me to the kids.)

  34. Crossing to Safety and Angle of Repose Wallace Stegner
    Woebegon Boy Garrison Keillor
    Steps to an Ecology of Mind Gregory Bateson
    Higher Order Perl Mark Jason Dominus
    PHP 5 Objects, Patterns, and Practices Matt Zandstra

    I’m most excited about Higher Order Perl. Geek, representin’. :)

  35. danithew #28:

    Keep in mind that the chapter divisions in the first edition of the BofM aren’t part of the translated text, and were added for printing purposes. They are sometimes logical, and sometimes not.

    Another advantage of Hardy’s book that I forgot to mention is that he puts poetic passages into verse structure, similar to how modern Bible translations treat Old Testament poetry.

  36. I thought the chapter divisions (in the first edition) did have something to do with the translation process and the manner in which the material was organized on the plates. No?

  37. I honestly don’t remember any bad words in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. I don’t notice them unless they’re overboard or gratuitous because I cuss so much myself. I’ve been recomending it to Relief Society ladies. I need to check the books closely before I do that, I guess. Geez, what must they think?

  38. jimbob—LOL about bolicao! Those things were just plain nasty; I only had a few on my mission. It was the “Ola” ice cream that seduced me every time; one district even silk-screened the “Ola” logo onto a t-shirt for me! I still wear it when I work out.

    As for bacalhau (dried salted cod, for those not in the know)—come on, it’s so much better than tripe! I even smuggled some home in my suitcase and prepared it a few weeks later.

    After browsing through the book, here’s what I’d like to cook (or, more accurately, what I’d like to eat):

    bolinhos de bacalhau (deep fried codfish balls—mmmm! no really! you can’t have a baptism in Portugal without them)
    caldo verde (green cabbage soup—soo good)
    cozido (boiled one-dish dinner with all manner of meats and veggies)
    tripas a moda do Porto (Porto-style tripe; just kidding, of course, icky ick icky)
    bacalhau a bras (cod with scambled eggs, onions and potatoes—really very good, though gut-busting)
    pasteis de bacalhau (cod pies)
    batatas fritas (fried potatoes—nuff said)
    feijao frade (black-eyed pea salad)
    pao (Portuguese bread)
    bolo-rei (Christmas fruitcake)
    arroz doce (rice pudding—mmmmm, so so so so good)
    cha de limao (lemon tea)

  39. As with many of you, I got RSR and Lengthen Your Stride. I also got volume 2 of Royal Skousen’s commentary on the BoM text, and volume 1 of the Anchor Bible on Proverbs.

    Danithew, re: Grant Hardy’s The BoM: A Reader’s Edition, you may find my published review helpful:

    http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=522

    I think Grant did a terrific job and I highly recommend it.

  40. My daughter Emily gave me “The Inspirational Writings of C. S. Lewis” which contains his four bestselling works: “Surprised by Joy, Reflections on the Psalms, The Four Loves & The Business of Heaven”. I will no doubt spend many moments reading his words while traveling the A train to the Temple each week during this coming year. What I love most about our Church is the freedom to seek truth from whatever source it may come.

    “We believe in all truth no matter to what subject it may refer. No sect or religious denomination in the world possesses a single principle of truth that we do not accept or that we will reject. We are willing to receive all truth, from whatever source it may come; for truth will stand, truth will endure. No man’s religion, no religious organization in all the world can ever rise above the truth.” (Joseph F. Smith – Gospel Doctrine, 1939, p. 1)

  42. Kevin, your review prompted me to put it on my Amazon wish list, so that it ended up as a Father’s Day gift this past summer, just in time for me to use it for Pres. Hinckley’s BoM challenge! Seeing things in a different format has led to new insights, and I find the footnotes, “section” headings, and appendices all quite convenient. One complaint is that I think many of his poetic formattings are pretty dubious (outside of Isaiah of course).

  43. I only received two books. One fills a gap in my Nibley collection: Vol. 4 on Mormonism and Early Christianity. There’s something very curious about it I’m hoping someone here can help me with. You know how all the volumes have a different colored wide stripe on the dust jacket, with the cloth binding in matching color? For Vol. 4 the color is light green, but for some reason the cloth binding on mine is blue, the same as Vol. 1. Are all the older volumes now being done like this in blue, or is mine what the Spanish Book of Mormon would call “un tosco error”? Any advice on whether I should return it, or keep it as a lovable (and potentially valuable?) fluke?

    The second book is a very short work, Annie Dillard’s Holy the Firm. I blogged here about not having read it!

  44. Kaimi (#20),
    What better way to get the wife off my back than getting her sucked into a 10,000-plus page fantasy epic? Now I can watch my movies in peace.

    Problem is, she’s almost done with book one. I was counting on it being one of those gifts that keeps on giving the whole year through. Looks like it will be more like a gift that keeps on giving maybe into early spring. Thanks for the link, by the way. The wife appreciates it. Looks like she’s on her way to becoming one of you.

  45. Lurker response…

    Gregor the Overlander, by Suzanne Collins
    Sister Eternal, by Dieter Uchtdorf
    Balloon Animals, by Barb Whiter
    Where’s Dad Now that I Need HIm?, by Kent P. Frandsen
    Great Tree of Avalon, by T.A. Barron
    and a new large-print/spiral-bound Hymnbook and Children’s Songbook, because both of mine were falling apart.

    (the RSR and DOM were two books read during the fall semester… somehow)

  46. Re 36: Last week in YM I explained to them that often you’ll have to eat food you don’t like on missions. I told them about the first time I saw caldo verde. I can remember thinking: “They’ve put grass in that soup!” Now, however, it’s my favorite soup, although I recommend it with kale instead of cabbage.

  47. Tim J., I too worship at the altar of Simmons (but not the Sox. Alas, though, about Damon).

    Literature-wise, I received several of those shiny, hardback, really expensive Deseret Book publications that are triple-spaced and degrading to Joseph Smith’s memory and ideal for exchanging for things you want.

  50. danithew #36: From what I remember, the chapter headings were added to the printer’s manuscript, either by Oliver Cowdery or by the printer himself. I’ll have to check this against my Royal Skousen BofM Critical Text to be certain, though.

  51. Mike, my understanding is that during the translation there was some kind of indication to Joseph and his scribes of when a particular chapter had ended and that these were the places where the chapter headings were inserted. I’d love to hear Royal Skousen’s view on this as I might have misunderstood.

  52. I should add that I don’t think Joseph’s scribes actually entered any chapter headings. Perhaps there was merely a break in the text at that point? No idea.

  53. Kingsley #47,

    I’m actually not that big a Sox fan either, though I do liken the Yankees to the Anti-Christ. Like you alluded to, I think Simmons is the best sportswriter out there today, especially if you enjoy all the pop-culture references he makes.

  54. Three years ago my neighbors got all the Deep Thoughts books for Christmas. Now she was the stake Relief Society president and he is the stake patriarch. So it’s okay. I sat at their house for an hour and laughed my head off, while their family went in and out and did their thing. So I bought them all.

    Now I take them sometimes when I go visiting teaching. It’s a nice segue, I read something like “when it rains you could tell little kids God is crying. And if they ask why He’s crying, you could say, probably because of something you did.” Then while we’re all laughing and relaxed and feeling a little naughty, I throw in, “I think God has a sense of humor, don’t you? The message this month is on the Book of Mormon and I bet He really enjoyed all of us trying to finish it before December 31. But, wow, it’s been a spiritual experience for us.” And before you know it, you’re talking about God and good stuff. I am completely serious, I do this at times.

  55. Annegb, that’s a great idea and a very funny point about the Book of Mormon challenge. On the bus, in fast-food joints, bowling allies, basketball games, adult bookstores, etc.–everywhere this past month–one saw heads young and old bent over those little red military editions of the scriptures. An amusing and somehow comforting and even cozy sight.

  56. I think that some of the first edition chapter breaks occur where there are coliphons in the text. These coliphons were apparently translated from the plates. Other places there are chapter breaks but no coliphons. I remember reading that these were inserted as part of the typesetting process.

  58. I gave-
    The Rivalry : Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and the Golden Age of Basketball to my husband, and I got Christ and the New Covenant by Jeffrey R. Holland

  59. Santa delivered several fairy tales and fairy tale collections for the kids (okay, for us). Jesse and I tend to buy ourselves the nonfiction books we want pretty readily throughout the year, so not much left to buy for gifts–especially since I haven’t yet finished reading the couple dozen on my dresser.

    I also got a book about teaching meditation and visualization to kids from my FIL. He sent Jesse a book about the art of storytelling. So I guess we’re all pretty much off in Neverland this year. [insert smiley here] And a wonderful little book about a particular Rockerfeller Center Christmas tree from a sister FMH blogger. Thank you!

  60. 1. Remembering Joseph–Mark McConkie (interesting collection of comments on the Prophet by those who knew him)

    2. The ubiquitous Rough Stone Rolling, which I plan to read once I’m done with Harry Potter.

    I asked my brother for the new bio on Pres. Kimball but received the Broadway recording of Ragtime instead (which I had also asked for, so that’s fine with me). BUT–I asked for the reprint of Nibley’s book on the J.S. papyrus, since DeseretBook.com has had it listed as due to come out in December, but it still hasn’t been published. What gives?

  61. The Experts’ Guide to 100 Things Everyone Should Know How to Do, edited by Samantha Ettus: Including such gems (each at about 3 pages) as “Mow a Lawn,” by David Mellor, director of grounds at Fenway Park; “Tell a Story,” by Ira Glass, “Tie a bow tie,” by Tucker Carlson; “Change a diaper,” by the Dilleys, parent’s of sextuplets; Manage your Time,” by Stephen Covey — yes, in only three pages.

  62. I was dissapointed that I only received one book for Christmas. It’s called “Who Moved My Blackberry.” It’s a satire that’s published in England, but not the states, so it’s a treat.

    I did recieve some cash, which I used to purchase my own books. I got “Ward No. 6 and Other Stories” by Chekhov and “Studies in Scripture Vol. 3: Genesis to 2 Samuel.”

    Lest you think my reading is snobbish and intellectual, I’m currently reading “Fight Club.”

  63. Crystal,

    The first rule of reading Fight Club is that you do not talk about reading Fight Club.

  65. danithew: Are you still here? I found the answer to your question.

    If you have Book of Mormon Authorship Revised: The Evidence for Ancient Origins (Noel Reynolds, ed.; FARMS, 1997; ISBN 093489325X), see Royal Skousen’s article “Translating the Book of Mormon: Evidence from the Original Manuscript,” pp. 85–87.

    Short version: Evidence from the manuscripts shows that Joseph Smith apparently saw some visual indication at the end of a section that the section was ending. Recognizing this, he told the scribe to write the word chapter, with the understanding that the appropriate number would be added later. However, the word “chapter” never appears in the text (although “book” does). Chapters, then, appear to be Joseph’s way of dealing with breaks in the text. So, in a sense, they were put there by him as the translator, although they do appear to follow the lead of the authors.

  66. Also, I would be remiss not to note someplace — and this seems like the best place — that Santa brought my wife a Feminist Mormon Housewives tote bag, and a matching shirt. I think that she looks quite fetching wearing the FMH shirt as she serves me my dinner and picks up my dirty socks.

  67. I echo (echo echo …) the comments others have made on Grant Hardy’s Reader’s Edition. I too read that version in response to Pres Hinckley’s challenge and found it a most rewarding experience. I decided to do a Parley P. Pratt and read it through quickly (not as quick as him though — two weeks rather than two days). I noticed connections that I had overlooked before. One thing that really struck me was how frequently the words (or variations thereof) “inasmuch as ye shall keep the commandments ye shall prosper in the land etc” occur. In fact, next to tetifying of the Saviour, that impressed me as being the main theme of the book.

  68. Kaimi, you get funnier all the time. I did not expect that of you. At first, after I found out you weren’t a girl, I mean.

    I am curious, what other books should we not talk about reading? So I can immediately discuss reading them, or go buy them if I haven’t.

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