The Good Father (Dave Harris Detective Series Book 5)

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Handley is a Mormon, and this book follows in the tradition of Eugene England and others who write personal essays relating to their faith and other meaningful elements of their lives. But I will probably come back to the book at some point in the future because, now that I know how the book is structured, I think I will probably enjoy it more than next time around. The Scholar of Moab. This book deserves lots of points for creativity and sheer inventiveness.

Mormon fiction has rarely seen such an abundance of colorful and eccentric characters, the least interesting of which are the protagonist, Hyrum Thayne, and his acolytes from the church community of Moab. Scattered here and there throughout the book are passages filled with philosophy and ruminations on the red-rock landscape surrounding Moab that make for enjoyable reading.

N.J. Matthews

This book would seem in many ways to be a rural Mormon retelling of that story. And, after a while, that gets a bit tedious. Still, there are aspects of his relationship to those characters which continue to interest me and which I will continue to ruminate on. I plan to look through some of the other reviews of this book on Goodreads to see if anyone else has insights which will better inform my understanding of their role in the story. A Short Stay in Hell. This story is just pages long and can be read in one sitting. An interesting look at s Salt Lake City through the eyes of a police detective investigating a murder.

This is the first of two books featuring Art Oveson, a Latter Day Saint law enforcement officer of the early s. This book is very well written, and I enjoyed reading it. Presumably, the author went on a mission to Brazil and brought a lot of his own experiences into the story.

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I thought the characters were interesting, as well. I do understand that both are allegorical tales about leaving the LDS church. Way Below the Angels: Harline sees honesty and objective truth as a higher good, and that makes for a very useful contribution. But that phrase got old really fast.

But I liked that he evolved away from that crass way of thinking as he progressed through his mission. And, again, I appreciated the honesty in his portrayal of his thought processes at various points in his mission. The last few chapters of the book are the most satisfying. Harline finally comes to terms with the fact that he will not only not reach his goal of 84 baptisms but may not end up making even one real convert before he finishes his mission and goes home.

His perspective about what he is doing in Belgium begins to change. He befriends pastors and priests and talks of the inspirational meetings he attends in Catholic and Protestant churches. He makes lifelong friends during these latter months of his mission as he learns to value the art of conversation for its own sake and the give and take of true friendships.

And many of these friendships extend for years beyond his return from the mission. That book is long out of print but can still be found in used editions. The story is a mix of faith, ecumenical explorations, illicit love and interdenominational tolerance, and I believe it represents the pinnacle of Mormon literature… So far. That said, I did enjoy this detailed portrayal of a Mormon family and ward. I identify with the Levi Peterson school of Mormon writing, but I believe Harrison does a good job explaining culture-specific phenomena without letting it get in the way of telling the story.

Her prose has an easy conversational style which I like. One last thought which seems relevant to this novel: I support efforts to re-think our language if it can help to alleviate this problem. The former describes an anti-woman bias or behavior whereas the latter has a more generic meaning which applies to human beings across the board. Obviously, no one deliberately set up the language to work this way.

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However, it seems to me it does make it easier to obscure anti-male behaviors and biases in this age of hyper-awareness surrounding discrimination. As these section headers suggest, many of the stories contain science fiction elements. All of the stories reflect or refer to Mormon culture in some way. Some of them poke fun at LDS Church policies such as the prohibition on popular music and on specific musical instruments in sacrament meeting or the pioneer reenactments that the youth organizations sometimes engage in.

Reading these stories reminded me of the exhilaration I felt as a kid when I first encountered science fiction authors like Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov. The story is cleverly constructed, and I highly recommend it. While many of the stories contain an element of humor, some are more serious in nature. At least one addresses the very real moral quandary of how some successful Mormons make their livings and the soul-deadening impact this often has on a person who makes that choice. Another tackles the tricky issue of a suicide pact between elderly friends who fear the debilitating effects of dementia.

Dream House on Golan Drive. I knew the author of this novel briefly in junior high school in Provo before we went our separate ways to different Provo high schools and on to different lives. I enjoyed reading it for a variety of reasons. First, having grown up in Provo myself at the same time as Pace, it was fun to compare his description of those days with my own memories of that time.

Many things about the town and the local culture were familiar, but some were not.

Although we certainly did avoid coffee and alcohol and even caffeinated cola drinks, none of which you would ever find in our house aside from an old bottle of cooking sherry with a faded label which virtually never got used and was eventually thrown away. They recalled fond memories of thoughtful discussions with both students and professors at that time. Some very interesting ideas arose out of that unique academic environment. Many of these seem crazy to me now, but I still find my world view to be in alignment with some of this thinking.

My Life Behind the Spiral. I enjoyed reading various chapters in this book, but I mostly skipped the football parts. Having been raised in the Mormon church myself, it was interesting to compare notes with his upbringing in the same faith. I also enjoyed reading about how he met his wife and about where his life has led him since he retired from the NFL.

For Time and All Eternities. And I agree with this author that polygamy as practiced by certain authoritarian groups and anti-gay discrimination wherever it crops up are both valid targets for criticism.

David Harris’ Mormon Literature book reviews

However, literature written in the service of a cause often falls flat when it becomes so consumed with making its case in support of its cause that it fails to tell a good story. I think this author has narrative skill and lots of promise as an author. The Book of Laman. The story held my interest, making me want to read all the way to the end.

I think it works reasonably successfully as a re-telling of the story from the viewpoint of a different character, but I found many aspects of it to be unsatisfying. One thing that surprised me was the great liberties the author took with certain aspects of the story, among them her portrayal of a Lehi as a drunk and a scoundrel earlier in his life. Certainly, Harrison found none.

I was also a bit put off by much of the dialogue. A lot of it seemed overly earnest to me, and I felt that injecting a bit of humor into the story could have helped a lot. The Key to Theology. I really like the format of this book. After every two chapters, there is a short interlude in the form of a poem or story or short essay. This helps to break up the material in the book in a systematic way. That said, I really struggle with the language of philosophy, which includes terminology necessary for understanding theology.

Consequently, I think tackling this book requires more bandwidth than I currently have, so I have only leafed through the book for the time being and plan to return to it for a more serious reading sometime in the future. It has occurred to me that earlier works on the subject might be less wrapped up in the complex language of philosophy, and I recently purchased a copy of Sterling M.

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Utah State University Press, This book is a series of articles about the original biography. I did read two of the articles and skimmed a third. But I would recommend it in lieu of the full FMB biography for those who are more interested in her Joseph Smith book specifically. Which might be useful to someone thinking about whether or not to read the biography.

I found it interesting, but I have to confess I did skim through a lot of it. University of Oklahoma Press, The book engaged me from start to finish.

And, yes, it answered the questions I had had about her excommunication. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism. Like any good biography, this book reads like a novel. I have yet to read a Brodie-penned biography, but I am very curious to do so now if only to compare her style to that of her biographer. The author clearly admires Brodie, yet I felt that the book was neutral in tone and not overly indulgent of Fawn and Bernard.

It included interesting information about their marriage, their family life, their children and also of the interesting time in which they were active and of the many prominent characters they interacted with in the various places they called home over their many decades together. Henry Kissinger was just one of these. The book raised some interesting questions in my mind about the notion of biography in general. Probably not, I think. Which leads me to believe that a great many other less accomplished people would probably be equally interesting subjects for biographies of their own if we only had the same sort of access to their inner lives and thinking that we do to typical subjects of traditional biographies through their letters and other writings and through interviews of those who knew them well.

If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support? A young girl is brutally murdered and her body mutilated; and a fifteen year old boy is arrested and charged with the murder. Chief of Detectives, Dave Harris discovers that important documents are missing that could compromise the case. Forced to reopen the case, he soon becomes involved in more than the murder.

Trafficking in human body parts, strange religious practices and a Witchdoctor become factors in the investigation. Read more Read less. Here's how restrictions apply. Nog Press; 1 edition February 27, Language: Be the first to review this item Would you like to tell us about a lower price?

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