Good June Reads

The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
I finally finished the mother of all books! This is a book you have to read at least once in your lifetime so I feel pretty good about finishing it off. The first 350 pages was interesting but pretty difficult with many long monologues (good ones however) and lots of eccentric characters which seem to define Russian literature. But once you got past the first half of the book things really pick up and you are hooked until the end. This book is worth it if for nothing else than Father Zossima's teaching, Ivan’s discussion with the Devil or the speeches by the lawyers at the end.

I was telling Kelli yesterday as we were looking at the enormous volume of Tolstoy’s War and Peace (which we will also read someday far far in the future) that it seems like Russian authors try to cover every aspect of life in their novels. Greed, lust, jealousy, murder, redemption, hope, any freaking subject you can think of they feel like they have to cover. I’m not complaining, it does make for a pretty amazing novel. Sometimes when the long monologues were dragging a little I had to remind myself that someone actually was able to write all of this! Dostoevsky was able to develop and keep up the characters of about 20 different people with perfection. Absolutely amazing! There were many times when I stopped reading this book and thought about it the rest of the day in absolute awe of such a gift that Dostoevsky had. I think I will always be in awe of him. I can’t imagine having been given this kind of imagination or writing skill. I can only attribute like this to God. I’m excited to read Crime and Punishment and The Idiot when I get a chance as well as Dostoevsky’s recreated account of when he spent four years in a Siberian prison. I highly recommend reading this.



















Into the Wild – Jon Krakauer
Chris McCandless, a 24 year old college graduate from Emory University disowned his family and made his way out west to travel the countryside by foot and ultimately to try to survive out in the bush of Alaska with a 10 pound bag of rice and minimal supplies. Ultimately, he doesn't make it as many of you already know. No need to say more, Jon Krakauer is awesome and this is a must read. Krakauer does a great job of examining Chris' motives for doing this and giving a detailed account of what led up to this and what went wrong with his plan which he gets straight from McCandless' own journals.




















Pornified – Pamela Paul
This is a fascinating expose of the effects of pornography on our culture and on men and women in general. For this book she interviewed well over 100 people for their experiences or their significant others experience with pornography to examine how it affected relationships as well as a man’s view of women, etc. All the typical stuff but very well done. It is an interesting read but it is very candid so keep that in mind if you are going to read it. Some xxx language in there. I think the first 100 pages started out very strong and had some valuable information but it got pretty redundant in the last 150 pages. The people’s stories got kind of old and redundant as well. It is a tiring book to read but I definitely suggest reading the first 100 pages to really get a glimpse of what pornography has done to the American culture. It’s not an easy book to check out in the library seeing that there is a red, white, and blue thong hanging out on a clothesline. It’s much easier to order it on Amazon!

The Secret Message of Jesus – Brian Mclaren
Click here for previous review.

Jesus of Suburbia – Mike Erre
Click here for previous review.