Tag: fantasy

What I Read – January 2022 & 5×5 Challenge

close up shot of a person reading a book
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New year, new reading challenge! This year, I’m trying out the 5×5 Challenge (via the ScholĂ© Sisters homeschooling community). The premise is to pick 5 categories or topics you want to read about more in-depth this year, then select 5 books for each category over the course of the year. It comes out to about 2 books a month. I’m hoping this will be a way to balance my need for structured reading with the ability to still pick up random books from the library (or more realistically, the new Brandon Sanderson novel).

My five categories for 2022 are:

  1. Old Testament Context – Our church’s Come Follow Me curriculum this year is on the Old Testament. In addition to reading a new translation, I want to get some background on how to get your head around the Old Testament. Some of these will be LDS-specific and some more generally Christian or even Jewish (I hope to pick up Robert Alter’s Psalm translation.)
  2. Mormon Lit Backlist – Filling in some works by Mormon authors that have been on my TBR pile for a while that I need to get to.
  3. Stoicism – It’s been a rough year for me coping with the new political environment in Utah (really, several years and the whole country would also work here). I’m hoping that reading about stoicism will give me some tools to both act according to my conscience while not drowning in anxiety and anger.
  4. Reading the Hugos – Working my way backwards through the novel winners that I haven’t read yet.
  5. Books Becoming Movies – Because I like to have read the book first, plus my other categories are so serious that I felt like I deserved a break.

Now on to the reviews!

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Author’s Note: The 37th Ward Relief Society Leftovers Exchange

Read “The 37th Ward Relief Society Leftovers Exchange” on the Mormon Lit Blitz blog. And if you’re reading this before November 13th, don’t forget to vote for your top four!

This story originated from a phrase in When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller. A character says that some of her “leftover anger” spilled over onto someone who didn’t deserve it. I thought this phrase was very apt: sometimes emotions leftover from other encounters spill over into our interactions with innocent bystanders. The phrase also gave me the hilarious image of people boxing up their leftover emotions to store in the fridge for later.

lunch table
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During a discussion in a writing class, I connected that image with the idiom of “eating your feelings” and the scriptural idea of “mourning with those that mourn,” and this story was born. I have never participated in a leftovers exchange, but I have been a part of many potlucks, taste tests, cooking demos, and recipe exchanges, so this felt like something a Relief Society might do.

For non-LDS readers: a ward is a congregation in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the Relief Society is the church’s women’s organization. Food is a central part of most cultures and Mormons are no exception. It’s not a church activity without a spread of tasty calories, and bringing meals to each other is one of the most basic ways that we show that we care. See this fabulous book on Utah food culture for more stories and examples of LDS/Mormon foodways.

I see the lack of empathy for others as a huge problem both within the church and in the world generally. I was recently in a meeting where several Relief Society sisters expressed how they didn’t feel that they fit in and that no one understood their problems. But secretly everyone feels this way, at least part of the time. How much easier it would be if we could transfer the experience of our hearts to each other! If we understood one another that deeply, we would be more understanding of each other’s faults and foibles. Bearing one another’s burdens is in fact what Christ has called us to do; it is, I believe, the main purpose of practicing religion as part of a church, rather than as individuals.

I hope you enjoy the story and that it inspires you to find a way to share in someone else’s leftover feelings and make the world a more peaceful place.

What I Read – October 2021

October has come and gone and it’s time for book reviews again. Looks like the themes in this month’s reads are great short stories and novels with cliff hangers! I’ll also throw in a link to my Twitter review of the newly released Dune movie. Book reviews after the jump.

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What I Read: August 2021

Ah, the kids are back in school and so life is back to calm, right? Except that it’s 2021 and things are . . . interesting in Utah schools, pandemic-wise. My reading suffered this month from the amount of time I devoted to political activism, doom-scrolling, and existential dread. On top of that, all of the SF books I read this month were just ok. I guess you can’t find a favorite every month, but I’m feeling a bit like I struck out. However, one of my nonfiction reads has become not only a favorite, but a book I’m trying to pawn off on all the people I know. So I guess it’s not all bad. I’m hoping my reading pace picks up in the fall.

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What I Read: July 2021

Some things come in waves, and this month was a tsunami. So much has been going on that overwhelmed my reading life this month, not the least of which was the rise of the delta variant and preparing to send the kids back to school in it. I also had a few duds on my reading list this month that I didn’t end up finishing. With that caveat, this is what I got through.

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