No Coincidences

Tag: Out of the Best Books

  • Black and White and Adam and Eve

    Black and White and Adam and Eve

    In the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve were given two commandments.

    1. Multiply and replenish the earth.
    2. Do not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

    In the church we are familiar with this dichotomy. Commandment one could not be completed without disobeying commandment two. What were Adam and Eve to do?

    I recently read a classic short story called The Invisible Collection from Out of the Best Books Volume 1 (p. 329). This short story was in a section titled “Good Versus Evil.”

    In this short story, an art shop owner/dealer learns of a patron of his art shop, which his father and grandfather ran before him, that had been a client for nearly 60 years. He decides to go visit this client to see his collection and see if he might be able to purchase some of it back from him. The client had been collecting for 6 decades and the pieces he bought for cents were now worth a fortune. This story was set in Germany after the war. Inflation was ravaging the country.

    The art dealer visited the modest home of this art collector, only to learn that the art collector that had purchased hundreds of paintings, drawings, and art pieces from his shop was blind. This art collector hadn’t always been blind, he had become blind after the war. Our main character, the art shop owner, learned that this now very old man still daily pulled out the many portfolios he had collected and went through each piece one by one. He used his memory to see every detail he had spent countless hours admiring when he still had his vision. His art collection, even blind, was his greatest treasure.

    When our shop owner arrived at the home, he was immediately pulled aside by the wife and daughter of this old man. They told him the truth before he could cry out in astonishment in front of the old man. In order to survie they had been selling the art pieces for years. The husband of a second daughter of the old art collector had been killed in the war and she was left with 4 young children to feed. The family was barely getting by, barely surviving. They sold these priceless art items to survive. They replaced the real art with papers to fool the old man. They never told the old man because, understandably, they didn’t want to break his heart.

    This story really made me think.

    Lying is bad, right? And yet, in this story, the family of the old man had to lie, didn’t they? Or did they?

    Multiply and replenish the earth, but don’t eat from that tree. Many things in this life are not black and white. There isn’t a “right” or “wrong” answer to every question. There’s a lot of gray area in this life. That’s the point, though. God wants us to learn in this life to be wise stewards. He wants us to learn to make decisions for ourselves, to learn and grow from our choices.

    “nevertheless, thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee”

    Moses 3:17

    God is teaching us to be rulers in this life. God wants us to learn good from evil. He wants us to learn to follow the promptings of the Spirit (truth) and learn to follow that guidance. He wants us to take many options and make the best choice. He wants us to learn how to evaluate what is best to do, then do it.

    Being worthy is receiving something, putting it into your life, and acting upon it. As we prove ourselves worthy God gives us bit by bit more, and we grow step by step. That is what God is teaching us in this life. Worthiness, righteousness, freedom of choice, and stewardship.

    So, in this light, that we’re daily being tutored by God for greater purposes, how are our daily choices?

  • Books in 2021

    Books in 2021

    This is a list of every book I read in 2021 and the order I ranked them in from favorite to least favorite.  I get something out of every book I read.  I learned long ago that if I allow myself to not finish one book, I won’t finish any.  For those reasons, when I start a book, I’m committed to finishing it.  I don’t care how dry or boring it may be.

    It’s difficult to rank such a wide variety of books. I don’t overthink it too much. This is mostly a list of most enjoyable and most rewarding reads. That said, every book offers something, even if it might just be a laugh.

    I included a one sentence thought about each book.  This proved difficult because I could say so much about every book.  To get around the one sentence rule, I used many commas and run-on sentences. My list, my rules. I find it amusing posting a list of of books read in such an illiterate fashion.

    I enjoyed all these books because they each taught me something. That’s the great thing about books. 

    * Represents a book I recommended or gave to someone to read.

    Here’s my list:

    1. Dune*
      • The movie and book did not disappoint, what a fantastic world created by Frank Herbert.
    2. Stories of your Life and Others*
      • This is a book of short stories, one of which inspired the movie Arrival, the “Arrival” short story, actually called “Story of Your Life,” wasn’t even one of my favorite short stories, I ranked it 6th out of the 8 short stories, I can’t say enough about how phenomenal this book was, looking over it again makes me want to read it right now. 
    3. Unlimited Power*
      • This was a difficult read due to all the exercises and activities done throughout but has resulted in multiple beneficial changes to my daily life so needs to be near the top.
    4. Out of the Best Books Volume 1
      • I never expected to love this book so much, it’s a collection of classic short stories and poems, I learned I’m not huge on poems but highly recommend this for the short stories.
    5. The Eternal Man
      • Second or third reading of this book, love this book, the truths in it speak to my eternal soul every time.
    6. A Boy’s Story a Man’s Memory
      • I met Oscar at a church activity where he spoke about his book, the man emanated love and humility, his story is extraordinary and had me in tears more often than I’ll admit.
    7. Edgar Cayce Mystery Man of Miracles
      • Reading about this man’s fascinating life opens the eyes to the gifts God has potentially given some of His children here on earth.
    8. The Time Machine and the Invisible Man
      • These two classics were in one book so I’m putting them together, I think I preferred the Invisible Man for the roller coaster of where that story went, both great stories.
    9. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner
      • Make fun of me all you want, Stephanie Meyer is an amazing author and I enjoyed this book enough for it to be in my top ten for the year. 
    10. The Tommyknockers*
      • This book proved to be too long for CJ Matthews, classic Stephen King, super long, I read three quarters of this a long time ago but never finished it, the ending made it worth re-reading. 
    11. Whispers
      • Classic Dean Koontz, this was my second time reading this, there’s a reason it’s right next to a Stephen King book, Koontz and King are so similar and yet so different. 
    12. The Locket
      • This book is the perfect example of how expectations set the tone for a book, I had zero expectations for this book, and ended up liking it a lot.
    13. The Outsiders
      • Much better than Catcher in the Rye in my opinion, the movie was pretty good too. 
    14. Robinson Crusoe
      • This was a youth version so it was a condensed and quick version of the story, but I really loved it.
    15. Return from Tomorrow (just because I read it twice)
      • I love this book but it’s the second time I’ve read it recently, so it dropped a little (from #11 on last year’s list). 
    16. Those Gold Plates!
      • This is a defense of the Book of Mormon, it discusses other records that were kept on metal plates anciently that have only recently been found (book written 1979), and provides information that would have been impossible for Joseph Smith to know in the 1800s yet were somehow in the Book of Mormon, this was another book that strengthened my testimony of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith.            
    17. The Little Mermaid and other Fairy Tales
      • Clearly there’s something about reading some good old fashioned classic books that is good for the soul (see #4 and #14).
    18. Embrace Fatherhood
      • This was written by a friend and gave a unique perspective on fatherhood that I enjoyed reading.
    19. Mexican Gothic
      • I’m still not sure exactly how I feel about this book, it was entertaining, but not super entertaining, it was a page turner, it wasn’t a super page turner, but it was one of the more unique books I read this year.
    20. Lighten Up
      • Here starts the group of nonfiction books, nonfiction is great for learning and growth but I think most would agree fiction is more enjoyable, thus their position on my list, anyways, I really liked this book and I think it was one I needed to read at the time I read it.
    21. Spencer W. Kimball
      • Spencer W. Kimball and Howard W. Hunter meld a bit in my mind, I love Spencer W. Kimball for his missionary focus during his time as our prophet.
    22. Howard W. Hunter
      • I love reading about the lives of these most faithful men.
    23. The Mis-Education of the Negro
      • This was given to me by CJ and it taught me a lot about the history of education (and mis-education) for black people in America. 
    24. Moses Man of Miracles
      • Speaking about learning of great, faithful men (See #21 and #22), these are a series of books, with other books of great prophets, really enjoyed this book from Mark E. Petersen about Moses. 
    25. The Coming of the Lord
      • A book written by Gerald N. Lund in 1971, I don’t remember much of the details of this book, but it was all about the signs of the Second Coming of Christ.
    26. Essentials in Church History
      • This was DENSE, but this 685 page (yes you read that right) book taught me a lot about the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.   
    27. Pearl of Great Price Commentary
      • This was a deep and dense commentary on what I feel is one of our more underrated books of scripture, the Pearl of Great Price.
    28. A Bride goes West
      • A fictional book detailing the life of a woman helping to pioneer the west. 
    29. By Love and Grace
      • I could not remember this book at all until I pulled it off the book shelf, that normally would give it huge deduction points in my list, but once I saw the book and opened the front cover, memories of this book washed over me, so I had to move it up the list, a book about a man who finds love and faith, gets falsely accused of murder, it was actually a super awesome book.
    30. Catcher in the Rye
      • Kind of terrifies me that our high school students are reading this book of debauchery.
    31. Dakota Diaspora
      • I may have to read this again as I don’t remember much about it, but reading the back cover reminds me what a fascinating story it was, a woman tells the story of her Jewish parents who left Russia to settle in North Dakoda in the 1800s, really interesting story and a way of life I can’t even imagine. 
    32. Temple Worship
      • When you read temple books in succession, they kind of meld together, this is the case with this book and next on the list, House of Glory, Temple Worship was written by Andrew C. Skinner in 2007, it’s a little deeper than House of Glory and had pictures!
    33. House of Glory
      • Compared to Temple Worship this book was more temporal information on temples if I remember right, it was written by S. Michael Wilcox in 1995.
    34. How to Pray and not Fall Asleep
      • This was literally a how-to book on praying better.
    35. An Epistle from the New Testament Apostles
      • This was a cool concept, it put all the epistles from the New Testament into thematic categories as if they were a single letter. 
    36. This Word of Wisdom
      • This tiny book was written in 1958 and was all about the Word of Wisdom.
    37. America’s Wonderlands
      • This was a coffee table book with pictures and information about America’s national parks. 
    38. Articles of Faith Volume 1
      • This is another coffee table book, a big, beautifully illustrated book about the articles of faith, part 1 of 3 I believe.
    39. Studies in Scripture Volume 3 the Old Testament
      • You know when a book is so good for you but man is it dense and difficult to read, yeah, commentary on Genesis through 2 Samuel falls into that category.
    40. The Seat of the Soul
      • Dude, this book was wild, I quickly went from “wow I’m really getting a lot out of this” to abruptly thinking, “what the heck, we’re talking about dolphin souls,” this book was a wild ride, and fun fact, it appeared my grandma had the same experience because right as my marking of the book started to greatly decrease so did hers, and I don’t think she ended up finishing this book, which is understandable with the out there direction it headed. 
    41. The Church and the Negro
      • Here enters my flawed books, this book had some outdated and inappropriate information.
    42. I was a Born Again Mormon
      • I don’t want to be too disparaging of a book, so I won’t say much about this, let’s just say I disagreed with a lot.
    43. Deal Me In
      • Old book I’ve had for a long time and read before, biographies of professional poker players in the early 2000s.
    44. No Limit Hold em Theory and Practice
      • Dusted off one of my old poker books to explore some strategic game theory ways of thinking.
    45. Passport to Survival
      • This is so low due to the dry nature of the content, not due to lack of good content, this book had all sorts of recipes and ways to extend food storage and survive in an emergency. 

    Additional reading:

    1. To Young Men Only – old church pamphlet.
    2. Book of Mormon
      • Checking back on time stamps of my notes tells me I read 2 Nephi 6-Mosiah 2. I’m reading the book of Mormon alongside a cultural commentary and adding notes throughout.
    3. Doctrine & Covenants
      • Read from Section 100 to 133 alongside two student manuals to add comments and additional information throughout.
    4. Finished Old Testament
      • Ezekiel-Malachi alongside Enduring Word Bible commentary to add notes throughout.
    5. Come Follow Me lesson each week
    6. Started the New Testament
      • Started in Matthew chapter 1 and reading alongside New Testament Student Manual.

    Bonus footage for getting this far