Thursday, December 4, 2008

Moses....is that you?



The Year of Living Biblically has to be one of the most hilarious books I have read in a long time. The premise of the book is that an agnostic journalist wants to explore the spirituality of the bible and figures that the best way to do it is to truly live it for a while. He has an ulterior motive - by writing a book about his experiences, he might make some money. So he vows to follow everything the bible says to do for a year straight and keep notes and do research along the way. As he lived he kept a journal which became this book. To keep things linear, first he "became" Old Testament (that's the point where I am at right now). Then he "became" New Testament. I'm learning a lot right along with him as he shares the results of the research he is doing reading and interviewing biblical scholars of all kinds.


If you like the humour of Dave Barry or John Knox, you will enjoy A.J. Jacobs. No...you will crack up with his jokes! And along the way he is making some pretty profound discoveries as well. I'm hoping that because I found this book on the shelf of a Christian bookstore, that the good news in the end will be that he is no longer an agnostic, but a Christian.

Can I really say I've read this book?



The book lies abandoned on the shelf. It gave its owner many chapters of enjoyment, but in the final gasp (ie the last chapter) she just couldn't continue. The first few sentences of the final chapter threatened....tears.


I could just tell that Stephanie Pearl McPhee was going to reach into her past and tell a heart-warming story of such emotional depth that tears would flow and eyes would turn red. So I quickly slammed the book shut and there it sits. When I get to a place in my life when life is stable and hormones settled, I will happily pick the book back up and warm myself with the words of a great storyteller.


Free Range Knitter is a legacy book - a book that her children and family will treasure as an heirloom, just like her knitted items. It made me roar with laughter, and cry with heart-felt emotion. I want to knit like her and write like her...in my next life in heaven.

So I cracked another book cover already!



Or at least, I popped the CD in the computer. A novel even! "The Chrysalis" by Heather Terrell and Timothi Graham was a very interesting "read".


Loving historical fiction as I do and enjoying also the technique of combining the past and present in alternating chapters, this book satisfied both of these and went one more. It spanned three time periods. The Chrysalis is a painting done by an obscure painter in the late 16oo's (if I remember correctly). Therefore one chapter takes place there with the development of how the painting came to be. The second time period is just previous to WWII when the painting mysteriously disappears when its Jewish owner has his property confiscated (or does he???). The third time period is the present day story of an art auction house that is investigating the true owner of the painting. So there are many layers of plot development to the storyline and much to be learned about art, WWII, art auction houses, investigation and more. It carried me along nicely with my knitting click, click, clicking away.


The one thing that disappointed me was the fact that the artist and painting were fictional. There really was no painting called the Chrysalis that I could find.