"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." ~Groucho Marx

I started reading again! YES! This was one thing on my 3/4 of the year resolutions list, yes I have more than one resolution list. I wanted to start reading real books again. I got a little side-tracked when the Twilight books came out. Shameful, I know. But from then on I could only read vampire books, or random teen novels. Books that were "fluff", as some people would say. I could see a decline in my writing and grammar, and even my desire to be in English class.


So, I saw Of Mice and Men on a shelf in my teacher's classroom and I dared myself to read it, it's like 15 pages long! I ate that book up, while simultaneously trying to write an essay.. 


A few days ago I found another teen novel to seduce me. BUT, I promised myself that alongside it I would read a Jane Austin novel. I decided to get back into Emma. I started to read it, but never finished. I must read it! 





Sometimes I think that we put certain books of "literature" onto these pedestals because they are old and written by stuffy men, but only some of them actually deserve the title of Great Literature. Nevertheless, "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."  ~Mark Twain We had an excellent lesson in Young Women's about Culture and Arts. One of the topics was literature and our teacher asked, "Could our society today produce an Isaac Newton or a Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?" 

"I don’t know whether our heavenly home has a television set or a DVD player, but in my mind’s imagery it surely has a grand piano and a magnificent library. There was a fine library in the home of President Gordon B. Hinckley’s (1910–2008) youth. It was not an ostentatious home, but the library contained about 1,000 volumes of the rich literature of the world, and President Hinckley spent his early years immersed in these books. To be well-read, however, it is not necessary to possess expensive collections of literature, for they are available to rich and poor alike in the libraries of the world." - Our Refined Heavenly Home, Elder Douglas L. Callister



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Isn't that wonderful to think about?! A grand piano in heaven, but of course! I haven't really thought about it like that, but that's an obvious. And a "magnificent library". I can't wait. And I agree with Callister, I don't think our heavenly home has a DVD player. Why can't we all just read books instead of tv? Get with it, it's the same stories except you get smarter after you read it. Why wouldn't you want that? 


Finally, President McKay noted: “As with companions so with books. We may choose those which will make us better, more intelligent, more appreciative of the good and the beautiful in the world, or we may choose the trashy, the vulgar, the obscene, which will make us feel as though we’ve been ‘wallowing in the mire.’” I don't know if I would call my novels obscene, but they certainly are guilty pleasures. 


Suggestions I found for starting to read good books again:

1. Keep a dictionary on hand. Use the "Oxford English Dictionary" as a reference for unfamiliar words or to define words that have changed in meaning over time.
2. Consider purchasing editions that have end notes and in-text references for clarification of outdated terms and allusions. (Barnes and Noble carries a line of inexpensive classics with thorough and clear introductions, end notes, and in-text notes that aid the reader with older and/or more complicated works).
3. Remember to enforce the importance of reading in your home. To read literature is to learn about history, human interactions, other cultures, and inner thought processes. To read is to force oneself to view life from a new perspective and to see one's own lifestyle in a more objective light.

P.S, Don't you just love these little reading nooks?!