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June 17
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James Carroll
gave  to:
How to Win Friends & Influence People (Paperback)
by
Dale Carnegie
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my rating:
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June 13
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James Carroll
made a comment on Heidi Summers's profile:
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May 26
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James Carroll
read and liked
Jared's
review of All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space!:
"Mel Bartholomew is a huge advocate of box gardening. Box gardening is a great idea, especially when you have alkaline clay like we have in our backyard. Constructing the boxes is a snap -- okay, more like a whine, because it takes a drill. He does...more
Mel Bartholomew is a huge advocate of box gardening. Box gardening is a great idea, especially when you have alkaline clay like we have in our backyard. Constructing the boxes is a snap -- okay, more like a whine, because it takes a drill. He doesn't emphasize enough, though, that the gardens take a huge amount of water, because the wood seems to wick the water away from the dirt.
Stuff seems to grow well in Mel's Mix, if you plant it in the right part of the season. Last year we planted quite late, so our harvest was pretty meager. This year, all of our varieties of lettuce are already huge, our asparagus is coming up, our strawberries are going wild, and our carrots seem to be doing well. For some reason, though, tomatoes seem to just as well in the clay, if not better. So we're doing an experiment: planting tomatoes in boxes and out of boxes to see which are better.
The square-foot part of the idea seems to work for some things, but it's not as helpful for others. I find his emphasis on the idea a little funny. For things that can be planted in a single square, they're great. But last year our tomatoes plants got so big that they overflowed into other squares, choking out the plants that were in them. And, I'm sorry, but strawberries were meant to take over a whole box. There's just no point in dividing the plants up.
The book is very conversational. Some of the concepts could use better diagrams, like the greenhouse idea. And he mentions that each box will last for several years, but he doesn't give any ideas about how to move the dirt when you have to take one apart. And his idea of putting chicken wire on the bottom of the box to keep critters out is great -- but we've learned that you have to use maybe quarter inch chicken wire, because small rodents like voles can get through the one inch. And the edges of the wire tear up the weed fabric, so we have weeds around the edges of the boxes.
Thankfully, though, the garden boxes themselves are really easy to weed, because the dirt doesn't get compacted from being walked on, like you get with a normal garden. Overall, I'm glad we're using this approach, because the results we got the first year trying to plant directly in our clay (with some topsoil thrown on top) was rather sad -- except for the tomatoes.(less)
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May 15
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James Carroll
gave to:
Midnight Sun (Twilight, #5) (partial draft)
by
Stephenie Meyer
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my rating:
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James Carroll
gave  to:
The Host (Hardcover)
by
Stephenie Meyer
bookshelves:
fiction,
sci-fi-fantasy
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my rating:
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recommended for: anyone and everyone
read in May, 2008
James said:
"This is the best book that SM has written to date. Excellent. Full of conflict and contrast, hate, anger, love, forgiveness, and hope.
Well done, and much better than her Twilight stuff (although I thought the twilight series was surprisi...more
This is the best book that SM has written to date. Excellent. Full of conflict and contrast, hate, anger, love, forgiveness, and hope.
Well done, and much better than her Twilight stuff (although I thought the twilight series was surprisingly good as well).(less)
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James Carroll
gave to:
The Host (Paperback)
by
Stephenie Meyer
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my rating:
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May 14
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James Carroll
read and liked
Shannon's
review of Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling:
"This is a superb book. However, I wouldn't recommend it indiscriminately; the book can shake your testimony if you're not careful. If you do read it, keep these things in mind:
*Don't stop in the middle; read to the very end. Bushman does ...more
This is a superb book. However, I wouldn't recommend it indiscriminately; the book can shake your testimony if you're not careful. If you do read it, keep these things in mind:
*Don't stop in the middle; read to the very end. Bushman does a great job of showing Joseph's development not only as a prophet but also as a man . . . and as a new convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
*Although the author is a "believer," he is also a historian. He necessarily take's a historian's perspective on many events. For example, his explanation for the church's failure to establish Zion in Missouri is that the people were impoverished, they were surrounded by a community filled with all sorts of suspicion and prejudices (and the Saints weren't "normal" by their neighbors' standards), and their numbers threatened the county's political aims. On the other hand, God's explanation for the Saints' failure to establish Zion in Missouri was that the Saints had not attained an appropriate level of righteousness. As you go through the book, you might find it interesting to compare the historian's explanations with scriptural explanations for various failures and successes.
*Joseph Smith was a man whose history shows that he was in the process of being tutored in his calling as prophet and leader of God's church. He was not infallible. He was not without fault. He was not, as Busman points out, the "model man." He never claimed to be. Moreover, he lacked the age and experience that our modern prophets have had as they have led the church; comparing Joseph Smith with them is unfair.
In truth, this book showed Joseph Smith much as the Old Testament showed its prophets: they were imperfect men. Adam had a murderous son. Noah got drunk and passed out naked in his tent while his sons looked on. Abraham expelled his wife and first-born son to fend for themselves in a hostile wilderness; he also obeyed God in the unthinkable act of nearly killing his son (arguably comparable to Joseph Smith's willingness to obey the law of plural marriage). Moses (who also engaged in plural marriage) dared to take personal credit for providing water for the children of Israel. David and Solomon had serious chastity problems. Who knows what other prophetic follies have gone untold in holy writ? And still, God used these imperfect (and, from the world's perspective, accusable) prophets to carry out his will. Except for our example in Christ, our human aspirations for perfection in God's anointed are all in vain.
Joseph Smith for me has been so well lauded by Saints and hated by the world that I've long wanted to push aside the curtains to see what's behind all the fanfare--I've wanted to know what kind of person he really was. This book has taught me both positives and negatives about the man. The most valuable impression I've had is that Joseph was firmly convinced--enough to sacrifice absolutely everything--that his revelations were of God. Moreover, the complexity and ingenuity of those revelations leave little other plausible explanation.
In the end, despite all the knowledge you can gather about him, one's belief in Joseph Smith as a prophet (like one's belief in the Bible, Jesus Christ, the Creation, and so on) is inescapably a matter of faith. You must choose your beliefs as best you can.
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Latter-day Saint Readers
— 46 members
— last activity 08/26/2008 09:19PM
