Like a lot of you, I read a lot of books. Unlike a lot of you, this is a relatively new thing for me. Since Mormonism is such an all embracing religion, we tend to be rather eclectic in our tastes. So if I think the M* audience might be interested in a book I’ve read, I’ll do a quick review of it. Note, there will be spoilers so that I can analyze the book, so don’t read this post if you don’t want significant plot points spoiled for you.

I just finished The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. This was written back in 1974 and is a classic of science fiction. Probably many of you have already read it. They wrote the book to be the penultimate first contact story and, I’ve got to admit they succeed in spades.

Long after the failure of the CoDominion, the second empire of humanity comes across an alien probe. When it unexpectedly attacks them, they capture it and find a dead alien creature on board. The humans put together an expedition to the Mote system where the probe had come from.

These aliens, that humans call the Moties, are asymmetrical in appearance and have incredible intelligence far beyond human capabilities. Their ‘animals’ are so intelligent that they soon take over and ultimately destroy one of the human warships.

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I just read this article about how a survey shows that “Americans don’t know much about religion.” The article goes on to say that “atheists, agnostics, Jews, and Mormons outperformed Protestants and Roman Catholics.”

Really? Mormons know more about religion in general than Protestants and Catholics? Like tell me something I don’t know.

Believing Protestants in particular (i.e. usually Evangelicals) often live in a self inflicted world of ignorance when it comes to other religions. I did note that they at least performed well on questions about Christianity, though Mormons still beat them out.

At least the case for Catholics is more understandable because we’re often dealing with many marginal believers – people that attend on Christmas and Easter but have little other connection to their own religion. It’s not that shocking that they don’t know about a more esoteric doctrine like transubstantiation.

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I recently read an article on Bob Woodward’s new book called Obama’s War. It’s about the Afghanistan war and the internal doubt over Obama’s strategies.

I am a big fan of Woodward’s book Plan of Attack: The Definitive Account of the Decision to Invade Iraq which described in detail how Bush made the decision to go to war in Iraq. It’s probably the only somewhat neutral treatment I’ve seen on the subject. I also enjoyed audio (and abridged) versions of Bush at War and State of Denial. I’m working my way through The War Within still. I’ll be adding Obama’s War to my list. (Probably the abridged audio version.)

If you haven’t read Plan of Attack, I think that should be required reading for all world citizens that either breathe or have pulses or possibly both. But be prepared to have everything you think you know about how we got into war in Iraq challenged. It seems to be a painful book for both sides to read which is why I think it’s probably basically true. Oh yeah, and also he backed it all up with thorough documentation too for those that are into that sort of thing.