It's summer, school's out, vacations are in and our newest correspondent, Gernot, is doing an admirable job carrying the heavy lifting on posts. So I thought I'd give you a non-economic book review.
I just finished a book that caught my eye a few years back. I put it in the back of my mind along with the rest of the books I have on my to-be-read-someday list and then promptly forgot about it--until a couple of weeks ago. The book? Christopher Moore's Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal.
First a little background. I grew up in a fairly typical Christian house--maybe a little more faith-based than average (my uncle is a Lutheran minister), but along the way I learned to question my own faith--I still don't have any answers, but I can raise a lot of questions. What does this have to with Moore's book? Well, it doesn't really provide any new answers, but it's funny as hell.
And I can take a religious joke.
If you can't, don't read Lamb.
Lamb is the story of Joshua (Jesus' more correct translation from Hebrew) as told by Levi (called Biff) his childhood friend. I won't go into a lot of detail, but the basics are simple--the Gospels in the New Testament leave out the first 30 years of Jesus' life and Biff is brought back to fill in the gaps.
And the gaps are hilarious. Lamb is one of the few books I've read in the last 5 years where I have laughed out loud--over and over. Biff and Joshua travel the known world in search of lessons on how to be the Messiah. Drawing lessons from Eastern religions, Joshua figures out his purpose, while Biff acts like an adolescent--explaining to Joshua the joy of sins (usually adulterous) without Joshua having to experience them himself.
Lamb is funny, amazingly creative, slightly irreverent (offensive?) and touching. The ending is predictable (duh), but the details are laughably unexpected.
If anyone has read Lamb, let me know what you think.
