what i've been reading lately

“There are no heroes here, at least not of the Schindler’s List variety, but there are glimmers of heroism and people who behave with unexpected grace.” 

-In the Garden of Beasts, Eric Larson

I just have to say, as with anything Larson writes, this book is DENSE. It took me a while to plow through it, but in the end I'm glad I did. As fascinated as I've always been with WWII, Hitler's rise to power is something I'm only vaguely familiar with, so it was interesting to read about it from the perspective of the US Ambassador and his family who were living in Germany pre-world war.  

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“Back then, there weren’t channels dedicated to subcategories of the population. There was no Disney channel, no Food Network, no ESPN, no Bravo. There was Sam Donaldson, Peter Jennings, and, my personal crush, Tom Brokaw on the news, and we got cartoons for three hours on Saturday mornings until CBS switched to golf at 11:00 after the Smurfs. Oh sure, MTV hit the scene in 1981, but we couldn’t watch it because of the devil. Apparently we could watch a show starring two outlaw brothers, their half-naked cousin, and a car painted with the Confederate flag but couldn’t watch Madonna sing “Like a Virgin” because we might get secondhand pregnant.” 
-Of Mess and Moxie: Wrangling Delight out of This Wild and Glorious Life, Jen Hatmaker

This is a book club read, which I picked up knowing nothing about. So far, I've been surprised at how often it's made me laugh out loud, and would definitely recommend.

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“Elder Neal A. Maxwell suggests that the prime reason the Savior personally acts as the gatekeeper of the celestial kingdom is not to exclude people, but to personally welcome and embrace those who have made it back home.” "  

“President Ezra Taft Benson taught, "There is no human condition - be it suffering, incapacity, inadequacy, mental deficiency, or sin - which He cannot comprehend or for which His love will not reach out to the individual." This is a staggering thought when we contemplate the Mount Everest of pain required to make it so. What weight is thrown on the scales of pain when calculating the hurt of innumerable patients in countless hospitals? Now add to that the loneliness of the elderly who are forgotten in rest homes of society, desperately yearning for a card, a visit, a call - just some recognition from the outside world. Keep on adding the hurt of hungry children, the suffering caused by famine, drought, and pestilence. Pile on the heartache of parents who tearfully plead on a daily basis for a wayward son or daughter to come back home. Factor in the trauma of every divorce and the tragedy of every abortion. Add the remorse that comes with each child lost in the dawn of life, each spouse taken in the prime of marriage. Compound that with the misery of overflowing prisons, bulging halfway houses and institutions for the mentally disadvantaged. Multiply all this by century after century of history, and creation after creation without end. Such is but an awful glimpse of the Savior's load. Who can bear such a burden or scale such a mountain as this? No one, absolutely no one, save Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of us all."

So I mainly wanted to write this post just so I could write about this last book; it's the one I've been reading most recently in light of Easter. I've read this book before, but this time I've tried to highlight/annotate it as I've gone through because there are SO many amazing things in it. Tad Callister has been a longtime friend of my parents, so I had known prior to reading it that it took him nearly 18 years to finish (!!!) If you haven't read this book before, or are simply interested in understanding more about the Savior, I couldn't recommend it enough. It has to be one of the best books ever written about the Atonement.