Growing up as a Mormon in Utah, especially back before the advent of what are often called in Mormon culture “small temples,” the Salt Lake Temple reigns supreme. It is photographed endlessly. It is the crown jewel of Temple Square even though most visitors cannot enter it. It is the subject of both the state’s and the Church’s history and the stories that involve the Salt Lake Temple intertwine the two. As a result of that situation, some of the state’s other temples are a bit lesser known to the general populace, myself included. The fact that I always have to stop and think and remind myself that the St. George Temple was the Church’s third temple, not the Salt Lake Temple, proves that point. I first heard, from my parents during a visit to Southern Utah as a kid, that the Founding Fathers appeared to President Wilford Woodruff in the St. George Temple. The story was amazing and one I always remembered.
Visions of Freedom: Wilford Woodruff and the Signers of the Declaration of Independence by Michael de Groote and Ronald L. Fox (ISBN: 978-1-60861-227-7) is a book about Wilford Woodruff’s visions (he had two of them on this subject) and the men that appeared to him. The first part of the book discusses the history behind modern vicarious ordinances in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (anciently, the Bible contains one passage discussing baptism for the dead, and scholarly literature discusses a few others). The next major theme of the book is how Wilford Woodruff’s preaching about his visions and the work he did in the St. George Temple for the men who appeared to him, as well as for some other famous people throughout history, changed, to a significant degree, the Mormon outlook on work for the dead in the temple. Before President Woodruff’s visions, the vast majority of temple work was done only for ancestors or very close friends. What that meant was that once a person had traced his genealogy as far as he could, he didn’t have much of a reason to attend the temple. President Woodruff’s work for the Founding Fathers and others taught that temple work was necessary for all who had ever lived, which also gave faithful saints a reason to come to the temple again and again. The majority of the book, though, consists of short biographies of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Each signer gets at least one page, although most have more than that. There are some appendices that discuss the actual temple work and various accounts of President Woodruff’s visions.
I am not normally attracted to reading about Church history. The history of the United States fascinates me. I’m sure this overlap helped this book be of interest, but I think it had more to do with the fact that the story was one that was of interest to me as a kid. I found the discussion of baptisms for the dead in the early Church quite intriguing. What I missed in the discussion of Wilford Woodruff’s dream was the actual sermons in which he talked about it. I found them, later, in the appendices. I thought that was an unnatural place for them. They should’ve been front and center. Finally, the biographies were interesting. They were just snippets and, usually, not very long, providing highlights of government service and the thoughts of other Founding Fathers on the person in question. I enjoyed learning about how they came to be involved in the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Many of them were what would be called “flip-floppers” in today’s toxic political environment (although maybe not necessarily since that term, at its purest, refers to those who change positions for political expediency, not because of any deeply held personal belief). Many were British supporters until things just got too out of hand (it was almost always taxes that bothered them, but property rights and religion played a role, too). The wide cross section of society was interesting, too. Most of the signers were from the upper or upper middle class. Not all, though. There were guys who had worked their way up from being the apprentices of tradesmen to being judges. There were merchants, clergymen, lawyers, and others. What they had in common was a desire for themselves and their fellow countrymen to be free. The book typically pointed out when one of the signers owned slaves or not. This is a fascination that modern history has, but I thought it was dealt with admirably by the authors, who noted, at the end, that, unfortunately, many of our Founding Fathers were slave owners, but that was a burning issue then, and most of those who owned slaves struggled with it, later freeing some or all of their slaves or helping to write laws that hampered the slave trade in the U.S., but the important thing was that the founding documents (many signed not just the Declaration, but the Constitution as well) made it possible to later eliminate slavery in America. Ultimately, that’s why they came to President Woodruff: they wanted to be free, free from spiritual prison in the afterlife. It was an interesting historical and theological read that made me think about my amazing national heritage as well as my testimony in a loving God that has provided a way for all men to return to him and experience salvation.
Visions of Freedom: Wilford Woodruff and the Signers of the Declaration of Independence by Michael de Groote and Ronald L. Fox (ISBN: 978-1-60861-227-7) is a book about Wilford Woodruff’s visions (he had two of them on this subject) and the men that appeared to him. The first part of the book discusses the history behind modern vicarious ordinances in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (anciently, the Bible contains one passage discussing baptism for the dead, and scholarly literature discusses a few others). The next major theme of the book is how Wilford Woodruff’s preaching about his visions and the work he did in the St. George Temple for the men who appeared to him, as well as for some other famous people throughout history, changed, to a significant degree, the Mormon outlook on work for the dead in the temple. Before President Woodruff’s visions, the vast majority of temple work was done only for ancestors or very close friends. What that meant was that once a person had traced his genealogy as far as he could, he didn’t have much of a reason to attend the temple. President Woodruff’s work for the Founding Fathers and others taught that temple work was necessary for all who had ever lived, which also gave faithful saints a reason to come to the temple again and again. The majority of the book, though, consists of short biographies of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Each signer gets at least one page, although most have more than that. There are some appendices that discuss the actual temple work and various accounts of President Woodruff’s visions.I am not normally attracted to reading about Church history. The history of the United States fascinates me. I’m sure this overlap helped this book be of interest, but I think it had more to do with the fact that the story was one that was of interest to me as a kid. I found the discussion of baptisms for the dead in the early Church quite intriguing. What I missed in the discussion of Wilford Woodruff’s dream was the actual sermons in which he talked about it. I found them, later, in the appendices. I thought that was an unnatural place for them. They should’ve been front and center. Finally, the biographies were interesting. They were just snippets and, usually, not very long, providing highlights of government service and the thoughts of other Founding Fathers on the person in question. I enjoyed learning about how they came to be involved in the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Many of them were what would be called “flip-floppers” in today’s toxic political environment (although maybe not necessarily since that term, at its purest, refers to those who change positions for political expediency, not because of any deeply held personal belief). Many were British supporters until things just got too out of hand (it was almost always taxes that bothered them, but property rights and religion played a role, too). The wide cross section of society was interesting, too. Most of the signers were from the upper or upper middle class. Not all, though. There were guys who had worked their way up from being the apprentices of tradesmen to being judges. There were merchants, clergymen, lawyers, and others. What they had in common was a desire for themselves and their fellow countrymen to be free. The book typically pointed out when one of the signers owned slaves or not. This is a fascination that modern history has, but I thought it was dealt with admirably by the authors, who noted, at the end, that, unfortunately, many of our Founding Fathers were slave owners, but that was a burning issue then, and most of those who owned slaves struggled with it, later freeing some or all of their slaves or helping to write laws that hampered the slave trade in the U.S., but the important thing was that the founding documents (many signed not just the Declaration, but the Constitution as well) made it possible to later eliminate slavery in America. Ultimately, that’s why they came to President Woodruff: they wanted to be free, free from spiritual prison in the afterlife. It was an interesting historical and theological read that made me think about my amazing national heritage as well as my testimony in a loving God that has provided a way for all men to return to him and experience salvation.
 | This work, including all text, photographs, and other original work, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 3.0 License and is copyrighted © MMXIV John Pruess. |
Dream Team: How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the Greatest Team of All Time Conquered the World and Changed the Game of Basketball Forever (ISBN: 978-0-345-52050-0) by Jack McCallum takes a pretty in-depth look at that most famous of basketball teams. The book goes into a lot of detail about how it even came about that the pros were allowed in the Olympics. It was a long, drawn-out process that involved FIBA, the USOC, and the NBA. Once all the egos involved in such organizations were sorted to an acceptable degree, the path was open, and the U.S. got to work putting the Dream Team together. McCallum, who was an NBA writer for a long time, chronicles how each member of the team was selected. He profiles them, some briefly, some in great detail. The qualifying tournament and the Olympics themselves are also described, with the Olympics, obviously, getting more attention even though the games had similar outcomes: blowouts. Since there is so much spectacle that attends the Olympics, and the Dream Team only compounded this effect, there was a bit more to cover. The book finishes with a short section on how the Dream Team had a large impact on the the global game of basketball and talks about the mess that were the next to U.S. Olympic teams.
The Contract: The Journey of Jimmer Fredette from the Playground to the Pros by Pat Forde (ISBN: 978-1-60907-140-0) is essentially the story of how Fredette overcame naysayers like myself throughout his life and achieved one of the lofty goals he has set for himself in his life by making it from a backwater in New York to the NBA. The book draws its name from the highly publicized contract that Fredette signed with his older brother, TJ, pledging that he would do whatever it took to get to the NBA. Fredette had a supportive family, and the book chronicles bouncing balls in the house and a makeshift full court in the back yard that was the place the neighborhood kids wanted to be. Most of all, though, he had TJ there to support him and serve as an unofficial coach and trainer throughout his formative years. The book actually spends a significant number of pages discussing TJ because of his large role in Fredette’s progress both as a basketball player and person. The book chronicles Fredette’s rise through high school and college, where he proved me and about a few million other people wrong by sweeping national player-of-the-year awards his senior year and being the tenth pick in the NBA draft.
The Princess Bride by William Goldman (ISBN: 978-0-15-101544-3), now in a 30th anniversary edition, is the book form of the famous movie. I wasn’t even aware that there was a book until a few years ago. As I tend to be a books-are-better-than-movies person, it immediately went on my list when I heard about it. If one has seen the movie, one has read the book. There are very few differences. I think the only difference is that in the movie the grandpa interrupts the story sometimes, but in the book, it’s the author doing that. In fact, Goldman has concocted an entire alternate persona for himself that is part of the introduction, the main story, and even some end matter. The story, of course, follows the hero after his return to the kingdom where the farm girl he once served is about to be wed to the evil prince, who has devised a plan to have her killed. The story follows the death-defying adventures of Westley as he pursues Buttercup (the names are somewhat ridiculous, but there’s a definite element of humor to the book) and dispatches a few villains on the way. Ultimately, he reaches his prize and defeats the evil, yet ultimately cowardly, prince in an anti-climactic scene where he successfully bluffs that he could get up and fight the prince in a duel, but, in reality, is mostly dead (to quote another famous movie), having recently been brought back to life.
Putin’s Olympics: The Sochi Games and the Evolution of Twenty-First Century Russia (ISBN: 978-1-315-81728-6) is a book by Robert W. Orttung and Sufian N. Zhemukhov that brings both of those interests together. It takes a deeper look than the usual press on the subject at the Sochi Olympics and their greater context in Russia’s domestic and international politics. The book looks at the problems surrounding the hosting of the Olympics in Sochi, which included corruption, a marginalization of civil society, problematic international relations, and the relation of security during the Olympics and its connection to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The viewpoint of the book was from that of the Olympics being something the authors defined as a “mega-project” and how Russia’s rulers, especially President Putin, tried to use that to their own advantages, both personally and to bring Russia’s standing up on the international stage. The authors come to what I consider mixed conclusions, noting that the Sochi games were secure, did result in much-needed infrastructure upgrades in Sochi, and, from Putin’s standpoint, his position was secured because Russians saw the Olympics as a positive for their country, although, as the Shenderovich quote above notes, this is not necessarily a good thing. On the other hand, the successes came at a great price, both monetarily and in prestige internationally, where Russia was hurt by the scandals surrounding the games.
Hero of Hacksaw Ridge: The Gripping True Story That Inspired the Movie (ISBN: 978-1-629131-54-2) by Booton Herndon is an abridged version of the story of Desmond Doss, a medic who served in the U.S. Army during World War II and saw action in the Pacific theater as the army advanced on various Japanese positions. What makes the story unusual is that he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and not once during his training or active duty did he use arms since he was a Seventh-day Adventist and believed it was wrong to bear arms. The story chronicles his time in the military from his joining to his discharge after being wounded in action in Japan. Doss is unwaveringly strong in his religious convictions, including an extremely temperate and patient attitude with those around him. He displays great faith in standing up for his beliefs when those around him threaten him and ridicule him at every opportunity. He doesn't hold a grudge when it comes time to perform his duty, and more than once wile fighting in the Pacific, he helps and saves the lives of others, usually at great risk to himself. The story ends with what truly are “gripping” details of battles on Okinawa where he saved likely around 100 lives while himself being injured. He is then awarded the much-deserved medal and is able to return to civilian life. The book also includes a post-script with information about Adventist beliefs (many are similar to those held by members of the 
To do that, I read the Qur’an (ISBN: 978-0-19-953595-8), translated by Abdel Haleem. The Koran (there are lots of possible spellings for this) is Islam's holy book, purported to be a recording of revelation given to the prophet Mohammed (lots of spellings for his name, too). It focuses on the nature of God as the only God, as opposed to idols, pantheons of pagan gods, or even God as Christians know him, the Father of Jesus Christ. The Koran talks about Mary and Jesus, but Jesus is not God’s Son. It talks about Muslims’ duties to the poor and orphans. It discusses the afterlife and the resurrection. It warns evildoers against their course of action. There are some details about domestic life, finances, and there is the well-known injunction to prayer, which results in the call to prayer that happens five times a day wherever there is a functioning mosque. There are some instructions regarding Muslims’ dealings with non-believers, or infidels.
The Power of Positive Parenting by Glenn I. Latham (ISBN: 1-56713-175-1) doesn't have all the answers either, but after reading it together with my wife, we decided that it has many of the answers, and even where it doesn't it tends to point the reader in the right direction. The book is full of guidance on how to deal with all kinds of different behaviors that children (and adults) engage in. There are sections for younger kids, for teenagers, for small problems, for sibling rivalry, and for larger, more destructive behaviors. There are a couple over-arching themes in the book that course through the suggestions for each kind of problem. One is to ignore things that doen't really cause any harm since most people just want attention and will take it however they can get it. Igoring kids’ whining, for example, is the most effective way to get them to stop. The other thing that was presented over and over was the need to positively reinforce good behavior. Default parent settings seem to be set to find negative behavior and call it out. What about the good? Fidning and reinforcing good behavior gives kids the attention they need and teaches them that good behavior will be rewarded.
In the early 2000s, as people in poor countries got desparate and the security situation deteriorated in many parts of the world, piracy made a comeback. There was nothing romantic about it, and it didn't involve the big ships with masts and sails, but usually small boats and a couple Russian-made machine guns instead of swords. A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea (ISBN: 978-1-4013-1044-8) by Richard Phillips with Stephan Talty tells one such story with a happy ending for the good guys. Phillips and his crew made international news when Somali pirates boarded the ship he was captain of and took him hostage. He preserved the lives of his crew and saved his ship, but felt it was likely that he would end up sacrificing his life for that. After a few harrowing days at sea with the pirates in one of the ship's lifeboats, U.S. Navy SEALs rescued Phillips and killed the pirates in a stroke of incredible marksmanship. The book also includes a little bit of the story of what Phillips's wife and family were going through during the ordeal.
KGB: The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents by John Barron tells some of the stories of the main Soviet agency of oppression and secrecy, the KGB. It provides an overview of all the Soviet intelligence agencies, but focuses on the KGB, which the author assessed to be the brains behind all of them. After the more academic portion of the book, it recounts a few fantastic stories. Most of the stories, a few which I had read elsewhere previously, had to do with the stuff of movies. The book contains the stories of Americans who betrayed their country and of Russians who betrayed theirs. They are fascinating accounts full of sneaking around big cities, breaking into vaults, offers of money, international intrigue, “seductresses” (as promised by the paperback version’s typically sensationalist cover art), and, of course, spies. It was interesting to read of a disgruntled U.S. Army soldier, his former prostitute wife, and his giving the Russians access to something they likely figured was impossible to access. I was also really intrigued by the stories of Russians and other eastern Europeans who risked it all to do what they figured was their part in the battle against authoritarianism and for liberty. One interesting story was that of a Czech who was sent to Canada by the Russians, but who ultimately decided that all he had been taught in years of intense training was not true now that he’d been in the West and seen how things really worked.
We Die Alone (ISBN: 978-1-59921-063-6) by David Howarth, re-tells the true account of a man surviving the harsh Norwegian winter using his own survival skills and the goodwill of his fellow countrymen as they resisted Nazi occupation. The Norwegians worked together with the English to bring people and supplies from England to Norway to sabotage the Nazis. The title of the book is taken from the idea that while sent up as a team, the saboteurs would split up, if necessary, in order to carry out their mission. The book’s hero, Jan Baalstrud, was betrayed by a local, maybe not intentionally, helped self-destruct the sabotage materials, and then escaped the Nazi patrols on the hunt for him. He used athletic prowess and backcountry know-how to stay away from the Germans, but could eventually go no further after a debilitating blizzard trapped him. Locals loyal to their country helped hide him and then help him escape the Germans, who seemed to be narrowing in. Baalstrud spent a few harrowing weeks on his own in snow caves, and his body suffered greatly, including frostbitten limbs, but his will to survive, although sometimes tried, never died, and he never gave up, eventually being pulled to safety in Sweden by Lapps and their reindeer sleds.
Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War (ISBN: 978-0-679-76389-5) by Peter Maass is a collection of notes from the author’s time in Bosnia & Herzegovina as a journalist during the Bosnian War, but since the stories are all told from his point of view, it reads like a memoir. There isn’t a lot of continuity, and it just jumps from one story to another, but roughly follows the timeline of the war. The bit of continuity that is there is Maass wondering how people can forget so easily the need to respect those around them. The stories are very real and personal, as Maass interacts with fellow jouranlists, soldiers on both sides, government officials, and what would normally be called everyday people, but can’t be in this situation because there was no such thing as normalcy in the Bosnian War. Maass interviewed a Serb sniper, Bosnian soldiers, dealt with a Serb checkpoint — ultimately unsuccessfully, had Christmas dinner with a Croat family in Sarajevo, experienced what it was like to be under attack while in a gas station, and was, like most who dealt with the Bosnian War, flabbergasted by the impotence of the so-called world superpowers to get anything accomplished in Bosnia. His account holds nothing back and it presents the war in all of grizzly horror that is war. 
This Is Serbia Calling: Rock 'n' Roll Radio and Belgrade's Underground Resistance by Matthew Collin (ISBN: 1-85242-776-0), tells about a few of the people who tried to change the minds of Serbians during the war with Bosnia & Herzegovina. I found the very idea of someone going against what Serbia's ironically-named (his first named means free) despot, Slobodan Milošević, worth reading about. The book tells the story of how what is now Serbia's second-largest TV and radio station came to be, how it presented a constant message that went against the ultra-nationalist propaganda of the Serbian ruler. It was often a dangerous message, one that resulted in jail time, seized property, and the constant fear of death and beatings. Most of the radio station's personnel suffered only lightly, but others in the political opposition were murdered. B92 struggled to present a message that would galvanize the people of Serbia against the war, and once that was over, against the government that had brought so much trouble to their land. B92 was no great supporter of NATO or the West when they started bombing Serbia during the Serbian campaign in Kosovo, but mostly stayed on message as they continued to denounce the their corrupt president. They brought a message of hope and freedom to the people, which ultimately resulted in the people of Serbia taking to the streets and quickly, with minimal bloodshed, throwing Milošević out of power.
Blood and Vengeance: One Family’s Story of the War in Bosnia by Chuck Sudetic (ISBN: 978-0-393-33548-4) is, indeed, and incredible story. It follows one Bosniak (Muslim) family from the final few years of Yugoslavia through the end of the Bosnian War. The information about life in an obscure village on the border of Bosnia and Serbia serves a great purpos in the book; it sets up what life was like in so many places. Ethnic hatred simmered under the Communist cover of “brotherhood and unity.” When the lid provided by party was gone, it boiled over and escalated quickly. Based on personal interviews in the first few years after the war, the stories of fights, flights, bomb shelters, forced marches, and genocide are raw and personal. The Muslim villgers, chased from their homes, their neighbors floating face down in Bosnia’s famous Drina river, seek shelter in neighboring villages progressively farther and farther from the fields and dirt paths of their nativity before finally reaching Srebrenica, where many would meet their ultmate demise. Along the way, they face a very personal enemy, their former friends and neighbors. At Srebrenica, the Bosniaks think they have found relief since the UN has provided for them a safe zone. They soon find out that the realities of international policy are far from cut and dry, and the safe zone has little in common with the word “safe.” Here, Sudetic relies on articles, documents, and archive material, painting a picture of great power ineptitude. Eventually, the war comes to an end, but not without changing forever the lives of those involved, some, paradoxically, possibly for the better.
In When Character Was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan by Peggy Noonan (ISBN: 978-0-14-200168-4), the former Reagan staffer (speechwriter), journalist, and columnist gives her take on the fortieth president. The story starts when Reagan was a kid and ends as he succumbs to the Alzheimer's and the ailments of time. One learns where he got his worldview from and how his early life influenced where he got. Reagan's father, I learned, was an alcoholic, but he still imbued his son with principles that served him well in seeing the greatness in all people and in upholding America's tradition of equality. Reagan's mother was a strongly and actively Christian woman, which also became a major part of his character. He believed in God and believed God wanted to be part of people's lives. One reads about Reagan's involvement in Hollywood. He was arguably an up-and-coming star, but never went big time because he got involved in the actors' union and the more political side of things. His political career was dogged by accusations of being just an actor, and acting likely helped him as he campaigned, but his real talent was likely in speechmaking to begin with. The book recounts Reagan's entry into politics. He was not, it seems, overly ambitious, but saw his involvement as a chance to help people, and that's where character came in. Reagan had standards and stuck to them, providing for people a stable and strong standard behind which they could rally. He was unabashedly religious, had no tolerance for racism, and knew that there was a distinct difference between democratic forms of government with capitalistic and those of the "
Gulliver’s Travels (ISBN: 0-14-143949-1) by Jonathan Swift is an interesting novel that was originally published as political satire. Now far removed from the contentious political scene of XVIII-century Great Britain, it has withstood the test of time and continues to be popular. This is mostly thanks to the first part of the book, where the book’s hero, Lemuel Gulliver, visits Lilliput, home to a humanoid race only inches tall. Gulliver has a number of adventures in this part of the world, including participating in a battle and putting out fires, which saves the island’s royalty. He also ends up being trapped in some distant land where the inhabitants are giants, which also provides for some adventure, but mostly being carried around in a box by a girl. Gulliver’s third voyage features a few different islands and a people who have figured out how to live on a machine that perpetually floats in the sky, landing only if the inhabitants are trying to crush the people on the ground below. Finally, Gulliver finds himself in a land where the ruling inhabitants are horses. The most inferior race in this quarter of the world are essentially humans, but in a wild and feral form. In each place, Gulliver is exposed to differing methods of government and people. He seems to learn from each, although always very patriotic when it comes to his homeland. Finally, after his visit to the land of the horse beings, he is disgusted with mankind, claiming it to not think and to be disgusting and wild in nature.
Rise and Fall by Milovan Djilas (ISBN: 0-15-177572-9) provides one man’s (Djilas (Đilas) himself) view of the Communist rise to power in Yugoslavia. Since he was one of Tito’s closest aides and advisors, he provides an inside perspective that is largely unrivaled. He also chronicles what he considers the falling away of the Yugoslav Communists from their revolutionary ideals. As he comes to realize that Communism, as implemented in Yugoslavia, isn’t what was promised, he becomes disillusioned with it, enough so that he published material critical of Tito and the Communists, leading to nine years as a political prisoner. Djilas covers a lot of ground in a little over 400 pages. He gives a short account of the wartime Communists, but mostly focuses on life under Tito after the war. He talks about foreign relations, internal politics, bizarre Communist Party perks like special stores for the elite party members, the cult of personality surrounding Tito, and the oppressive nature of a totalitarian or dictatorial political system. Interestingly, Djilas’s falling out was not with Communism; it was with what Communism had developed into in Yugoslavia. The reader even gets a small glimpse into Djilas’s personal life as he discusses his marriages. Finally, the totalitarian oppression claims the once high-ranking government official and he spends almost a decade as a prisoner because of his ideas, not necessarily even that radical.
To the Rescue: The Biography of Thomas S. Monson by Heidi S. Swinton (ISBN: 978-1-60641-898-7) chronicles the amazing life of service that President Monson has led from an early age through the present day. The timeline for the biography is straight forward, starting with his early childhood and ending with his time as the leader of the Church. He learned from parents and family around him in what was, at the time, a typical childhood. It follows him through high school, a mission, early marriage, employment, and a variety of Church callings. Along the way, there are many familiar stories, but there are sometimes some additional details that weren’t always part of the many sermons President Monson has given. There were also some additional stories. It was interesting to read about President Monson’s family a little bit and about his professional experienes. There was a lot of time spent on President Monson’s service as an apostle in what was then East Germany. The Church history aspect was interesting, as it was with some of the other episodes from his life, but they often seemed more like pioneer stories because of the great faith shown and the hardships endured. What was consistent no matter what part of his life was being discussed was the dedication he showed to serving others, whether that be in his family or those around him. President Monson was never too busy to help someone out, talk to them, visit them, give them a blessing, or share time and possessions with them. It becomes abundantly clear as the life of this man is chronicled that he understands very well that Heavenly Father is serious when He says that the worth of souls is great in His sight. President Monson has cultivated that genuine love and concern that is a trait of our divine Father and made it a part of his own personality. 
Surviving Hitler: The Unlikely True Story of an SS Soldier and a Jewish Woman by O. Håkan Palm (ISBN: 978-1-60907-847-8) tells the story of two of the everyday people that made it through the horrors of war. A memoir- or journal-style narrative takes the reader through the lives of the young woman, Agnes Erdös, a Hungarian ethnic Jew, and Gustav Palm, a Norwegian, as World War II placed its heavy imprint on their lives. The Germans invaded Norway and Gustav joined the German army. He was a good soldier who had luck on his side a couple times. Agnes was raised in a well-to-do family, but as Hungary fell to the occupying forces, her life abruptly changed, and she ended up as one of the many in the Nazi concentration camps. Sheer determination, coupled with a strength fortified by faith in God, got her through that most awful experience. Through a series of events, both of them found themselves in Scandinavia after the war, trying to put their lives back together. They met each other, fell in love, and were married. Part of the healing process was a search for ultimate truth, and they found the 
In It Is about Islam (ISBN: 978-1-5011-2612-3) by Glenn Beck, part of Beck’s “Control” series (although I’m not entirely sure because it doesn’t fit the government overstep discussion that is so central to the other two books in the series), the reader is given a crash course in Islam, then typical media and government lies about Islamic extremism (Beck uses the word “Islamism” for this) are discusses and exposed, and then Beck gives a couple basic suggestions on how to move forward. Based on my own understanding, the background information was solid. I was intrigued to learn about the contact early Americans had with Islam and the process they went through to properly educate themselves about it. The “Lies” section was good. It was likely easy for the research team to gather the material. There was no need to go into statistics or anything like that. Simply gathering material from the Koran, the Hadith, and the words of the extremists themselves, did it and showed just how the extremists come up with what they believe. Finally, there were a couple suggestions on how people should arm themselves with real information and not be willing to be stuck with what the media and politicians try to feed the American public.