Temple Worship

Temple Worship: 20 Truths That Will Bless Your Life by Andrew C. Skinner


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I really was amazed by this book. I read it in just a little over a week. It was simply amazing. The way that Andrew C. Skinner quickly and succinctly relates specific stories, scriptural references, and historical information to explain doctrines related to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Each chapter highlights a different philosophical idea related to the Temple. Two of the most powerful ideas for me were the idea that the same power that Christ and his apostles and the prophets have used to control the physical world is the same power that activates the ordinances in the Temple. This means that in a very real way we can be physically changed by the covenants we make in the temple. This book gave me a whole new vision and idea of the temple. I can't wait to get back to the Temple again after reading this.

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Seaman: The Dog who Explored the West with Lews and Clark

Seaman: The Dog Who Explored the West With Lewis and Clark by Gail Langer Karwoski


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book was a fun perspective on the Lewis and Clark expedition. There were references throughout their records to the Newfoundland Dog that traveled with them. This book records the dogs exploits.There is an interesting Google Lit Trip of the book found at http://www.googlelittrips.com/GoogleLit/...

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Tipping Point

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This summer at the final NECC Conference I got the opportunity to hear Malcom Gladwell speak. I had heard of him and heard of his books but mostly parenthetically. It was sort of assumed that if you were intelligent then you had read his books or understood what was meant by tipping point. It's interesting to actually be reading them and see how his ideas are becoming, to use his own words, sticky.

I have really gotten a kick out of his book. I have learned at least a few things.

First, I love reading books by journalists. I have also read Radical Evolution The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What It Means to Be Human by Joel Garreau Who did a phenomenal job of distilling all the disparate information and creating a sense of it.

Malcolm Gladwell has done the same. He has analyzed and translated the jargonese of the psychology so I can understand it. He puts multiple ideas into a language I can easily and rapidly assimilate. I read the jargonese myself too, but His skill as a journalist is fully realized in this format, a book, explaining what the news of the past has lead us to understand.

Second, language is important. He had a sort of side note about a toddler and her advanced use of language. This description really resonated with me because of the ESL class I teach and because my wife is working on a degree in Spanish Education. Very interesting stuff about how much more complex our abilities can be than we sometimes let on.

Third, and certainly not last, was the idea of Transactive Memory. Gladwell, described something that I understood, but couldn't define. As a husband, I notice that there are things that I do and know that my wife simply doesn't have to. I often ask her where my keys are. Not because I can't look for them myself, but because she probably knows and remembers better than I do. My kids ask me where their shoes are. Why? Because it is much more likely that I moved them back into their room than they are wherever they left them. The idea is this. We share memory with our family members. We don't remember things that we don't have too. The book I referred to before Radical Evolution The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What It Means to Be Human talked about this issue to but not in relationship to people but computers. Both books refer to this sharing of memory and the loss when that shared memory is gone. People who go through a divorce feel a loss partly at least, because some of their cognitive abilities resided in their spouse. People who have a computer fail and lose all of their data feel a loss and sometimes have to have grief counseling to manage it. Why? Not because they are weak or overly attached to material items, but because they in a very real sense have lost their mind, their soul.

I think this has some unique implications in the education world. First, how much of our memory do we share with others? How do we share memory and even personality with the community. Gladwell discussed this transactive memory as having an influence on the success of small groups. People not only know each other but the know each other. They value each other. This I think has a serious implicatioin for schools. Where interdependence is fostered there is a much higher investment in the success of each individual and the whole group.

Secondly, if we truly do share memory with our devices, we depend on them as we depend on other people, should we deny student their devices at school? We see their cell-phones and iPods, and MP3 players as nuisance items and distractions, but are we in a sense asking students to function with only part of their brain? What would it be like for us to function without the books we depend on? These students depend on their phones not just as a way to flirt but as a connection to their world.

This connection also creates another implication. What about our World Wide Web of memory? In some way as each of us shares, creates, comments and adds to what is available we are creating in a sense a Hive Mind (blatant Star Trek/BORG reference or Ender's Game take your pick) But we are creating a world in which what one knows all can know. Access then to this mind becomes essential to be a part of the same memory as our global culture.

Great book!

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The Son of Tarzan

The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is another terrific guilty pleasure. One of the books I shouldn't like. It has more evidence of Burroughs, Edgar Rice infatuation with 'culture Tarzan the noble savage has a son. A son who must also develop the muscle and jungle strength of his father. He inherited it in some way but it must be developed. He must fall in love, but it couldn't possibly be with anything less than a French Princess.

But I've got to say the romance in this one for a naive 13 year old was awesome, and I loved it just as much this most recent time.

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Beasts of Tarzan

The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I have rediscovered Edgar Rice Burroughs I picked copies of a few of his books for Microsoft Reader on my phone. (www.microsoft.com/reader) and then located them on the Kindle Store for my iPod Touch. I have re-read a few of them on the bus over the last few weeks and I am struck by one thing. INACCURACIES. I read them before I went to college and got a Bachelor's degree in Zoology, before I had spent hours watching Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, before I had visited a Zoo. His description of 7 foot tall 'apes' and they aren't gorillas (the gorillas are even bigger) is astounding.

Also his infatuation with the noble class of England and France. No one in the books has a good character unless they are Aristocracy and wealthy.

I should hate these books, they should offend me. They are full of racial stereotypes, negative depictions, foolishness and speculation. I like to think of myself as a thoughtful, progressive rational human being. One who prides himself on knowing and understanding the worl accurately.

But, I've got to tell you. They are so fun to read. It's kind of like a Sommelier going to the local convenience store and buying a box of wine for a cheap drunk.

Anyway the whole series is a lot of fun

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Runes of the Earth

The Runes of the Earth by Stephen R. Donaldson


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Those who have read the first two series may be familiar with the anti-hero Thomas Covenant. He was my favorite protagonist to hate. All through the first 3 books his Unbelief was entirely unacceptable to me. I hated him and loved Stephen R. Donaldson for creating such an absolutely amazing character. One whom I ached to see accept his role and do what he needed to do.


With this book author:Stephen R. Donaldson has returned to The Land with another cast of characters that are just as rich. Stave in this book was for me like Covenant in the first series. I hated his denial and refusal and ached to see him accept what none of the Haruchai would.


Linden Avery returns as the Chosen, but this time it is her use of Power and her internal conflict that we must empathize with. Unlike Covenant and his conflict of Unbelief Linden has the conflict of two powers and whether she can accomplish good by evil means. An age old question. The conflict was not as resonant with me as was Covenant's but it is there. I look forward to the completion of this series and another journey with the Unbeliever.

Both of you who have read my blog know that internal consistency is one of my personal favorites when it comes to fiction. Authors who plan well develop their internal consistency by foreshadowing and writing in clues for what will be revealed more fully in later books. Other authors, including in this case Stephen R. Donaldson, take advantage of elements left unexplored in previous books or expand references to include more complete ideas. Stephen R. Donaldson did this when the Demondim begin using the power of the Illearth Stone against Linden Avery and her company. This seemed inconsistent, but Donaldson slowly revealed that what was going on was entirely consistent with the previous books and with the current books in a manner that was both unique and unexpected and entirely satisfying.

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Stephen R. Donaldson

I haven't had much time to read or write about reading. Since Summer started. I am currently teaching an Online class in Internet Safety (Yeah, ironic huh) And carrying a full teaching load. I am running 5 days of workshops next week and I have been at the National Educational Computing Conference for the last 4 days in Washington DC. We fly out today and I am going to read on the plane. On the trip out I was disappointed to find that there is now a TV in the back of every seat. I fumbled through it and watched Food network and played Trivia and kept checking where the plane was on the map.

Not like the good ol' days of my youth when the only entertainment on the plane was a good book and the SkyMall magazine (BTW, what is the demographic for that catalog? Are the same people really buying a $14,000 home gym and lawn aerating spikes for their shoes)

Well, on the way home I am firmly committed to reading Stephen R. Donaldson's Book: Runes of the Earth.

That is unless, I get distracted by the TV again! :-)