The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson

2005; 644 pages. New Author?: Yes. Awards : 2006 Glass Key Award, 2008 Boeke Prize, 2009 Galaxy British Book Award, 2009 Anthony Award (Best First Novel). Genre : Crime Mystery. Overall Rating : 8*/10.

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Mikhael Blomkvist has had better times. He's just been convicted of libel against a powerful Swedish industrialist. The scandal has caused him to resign his journalism job and he has a 6-month prison stint to look forward to.

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So when an elderly gentleman, Henrik Vanger, offers him a year's salary to simply re-read the police reports about the murder of Henrik's niece 36 years earlier (to see if he can uncover any new angles), it's an opportunity he can't turn down.

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What's To Like...

There's the complex character of Lisbeth Salander (the girl with the dragon tattoo), a semi-autistic hacker with a photographic memory. You do not want to do her wrong. It takes half the book for her to join up with Blomkvist in the investigation, but she brings valuable skills to the project.

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The style is part police procedural, so you get red herrings and dead ends. But it's also part action story, so you get shootings, fights, sex, and a puzzle to solve. Blomkvist is a journalist who isn't even burnt-out, which is a nice change of pace.

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It's set in Sweden, which is always a plus for me. And it's a page-turner, which is important when a book's 640+ pages long.

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Larsson gives a chart of the Vanger family tree in the front of the book, which you'll end up using frequently. But it would have been nice to also have a map of the island on which most of the story takes place. The plenitude of details adds realism to the story, but Larsson occasionally goes overboard with this device. One gets the feeling the manuscript needed a stern editor's pen at places.

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Kewl New Words...

Slussplan : a famous street in Stockholm. Scupper : to wait in ambush. Importunate : expressing earnest entreaty. Dogsbody : a worker who does all the unpleasant or boring jobs. Exiguous : very meager. Christmas Glogg : a Scandinavian punch that contains (at least in one recipe) red wine, sherry, brandy, almonds, raisins, and orange peel. (Yum, yum!) Gallimaufry : a jumble; a hodgepodge. Contretemps : an inopportune happening causing confusion or the disruption of the normal routine. Antipode : a polar opposite. Tunnelbana : the Stockholm subway system.

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Excerpts...

...it was not Lisbeth Salander's astonishing lack of emotional involvement that most upset him. Salander fitted into this picture about as well as a buffalo at a boat show. Armansky's star researcher was a pale, anorexic young woman who had hair as short as a fuse, and a pierced nose and eyebrows. She had a wasp tattoo about an inch long on her neck, a tattooed loop around the biceps of her left arm and another around her left ankle. On those occasions when she had been wearing a tank top, Armansky also saw that she had a dragon tattoo on her left shoulder blade. She was a natural redhead, but she dyed her hair raven black. She looked as though she had just emerged from a week-long orgy with a gang of hard rockers. (pgs 40-41)

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Blomkvist put the photograph in his shoulder bag and walked to the park by the station. There he sat in a pavement café and ordered a latte. He suddenly felt shaken.

In English they call it "new evidence", which has a very different sound from the Swedish term, "new proof material." He had seen something entirely new, something no-one else had noticed in an investigation that had been marking time for thirty-seven years.

The problem was that he wasn't sure what value his new information had, if indeed it could have any at all. (pg. 326)

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Armageddon was yesterday - today we have a serious problem. (pg. 360)

(a slogan on one of Lisbeth's t-shirts)

The Swedish title of this book is Men Who Hate Women, which is more apropos, but admittedly a lot less catchy. The interwoven plotlines are complex and the book quickly sucks you in. It is easy to see why The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was a smash bestseller. There are some technical flaws and some graphic sex scenes, but the engaging story more than compensates. Eight Stars.

The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen

1963; 184 pages. Genre : Poetry. New Author?: Yes. Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

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Wilfred Owen was a decorated (Military Cross) British officer in World War 1. The horrors of trench warfare turned him into a conscientious objector, but he continued to serve in the British army. After being blown into the air by a mortar and landing in the remains of a fellow officer, he developed the stress disorder "shell shock", and was transferred back to England to convalesce.

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He was a blossoming poet who wrote about the horrors of war, so in 1918, he returned to active service in France because he felt it was necessary to be able to write accurately about the warfare. His life was tragically cut short at age 25, when he was shot in the head and killed exactly one week before the war ended. It is said that his mother received the news of his death as the church bells were being rung to proclaim the Armistice. You can read the Wikipedia article about him here.

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What's To Like...

TCPoWO is broken into three parts : 32 "War Poems"; 22 "Other Poems and Fragments"; and 25 "Minor Poems and Juvenilia".

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He is most famous for his War Poems, which vividly portray the mood of the soldiers in the WW1 trenches. His topics are things like poison gas, spring offensives, SIW (self-inflicted wounds), freezing in the winter, and of course, death. He lost his belief in God during the war, and developed a contempt for those who prospered from such conflict. In the introduction, C. Lewis writes, "we shall not fully understand the poetry of protest written by Owen, Sassoon and others, unless we realize how great was the gulf between the fighting man and the civilian at home, and between the front-line soldier and the brass-hat. To the soldier, those on the other side of the barbed wire were fellow sufferers; he felt less hostility towards them than towards the men and women who were profiting by the war, sheltered from it, or willfully ignorant of its realities."

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Besides the message, his poems are interesting for the various styles and structures he used. He was a master of word and meter. He used a number of rhyming schemes, including half-rhymes, and the rarely-seen consonantal end-rhymes. This latter device (rhyming words like "grained & ground" and "tall & toil") is what caused me to seek out his poems.

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Kewl New Words...

Execrable : deplorable; in very poor condition. Oblation : the act of offering something, such as worship. Glozed : glazed over. Infrangibly : unbreakably. Verger : a church official who keeps order during the service. Serried : crowded together. Malison : a curse. Hecatomb : a large sacrifice to a deity. Acropole : the French word for 'Acropolis'.

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Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

(It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country)

"Dulce Et Decorum Est" is the title of what is probably Owen's most famous poem, and he calls that phrase simply "The old Lie". His War Poems are powerful works (a few excerpts are given below), and will set you smack dab in the muddy, bloody World War One trenches.

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The other two sections are good, but less spectacular. Owen greatly admired John Keats, and he has a tendency at times to get Miltonesquely flowery with his poetry. The Juvenilia section are from his early, pre-war days; and are, unsurprisingly, uneven. But they show him experimenting with style and structure, and some are quite interesting.

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The War Poems are 10 Stars. The rest are 7 Stars. We'll average them out and give The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen 8½ stars. One mourns for the loss of his life at such an early age, and we can only wonder how many memorable poems were lost because he didn't live to a ripe old age.

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Excerpts...

Gas! Gas! Quick boys - An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning."

(from Dulce Et Decorum Est)

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It seemed that out of battle I escaped

Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped

Through granites which titanic wars had groined

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,

Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred

Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared

With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,

Lifting stressful hands as if to bless.

And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,

By his dead smile, I knew we stood in Hell.

(from Strange Meeting, and a fine example of consonantal rhyme)

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Has your soul sipped

Of the sweetness of all sweets?

Has it well supped

But yet hungers and sweats?

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I have been witness

Of a strange sweetness,

All fancy surpassing

Past all supposing.

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Passing the rays

Of the rubies of morning,

Of the soft rise

Of the moon; or the meaning

Known to the rose

Of her mystery and mourning.

(from Has Your Soul Sipped?)

Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome

1889; 195 pages. New Author?: Yes. Genre : Classic Lit; Humor. Full Title : Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog!). Overall Rating : 9*/10.

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Three chums, convinced that they have every one of 107 maladies save one (the only one they don't have is "Housemaid's Knee"), decide it would be therapeutic to spend a fortnight boating up-then-down the Thames River. A terrier named Montmorency joins them, and misadventures arise.

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What's To Like...

Despite his contemporary critics sniffing at it for being lowbrow, Three Men In A Boat was an instant hit with the Victorian reading crowd. Jerome K. Jerome (that's his real name) deftly combines (via his narrator) head-scratching (il)-logic, quaint understatement, absurd anecdotes, and the characters' self-delusion into a witty story that still holds up nicely today. Jerome gives some beautiful descriptions of the scenery along the Thames, as well as some of the rich history (such as the signing of the Magna Charta at Runnymede) that took place in the area.

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There are 19 chapters, each with a helpful outline at its beginning and some awesome drawings that I presume were in the original edition. Jerome offers some delightful discourses; some tongue-in-cheek (such as odiferous cheeses and camping in the rain), others quite wistfully serious (such as the hustle and bustle of the 19th Century and the thrill of sailing on the River). Indeed, at one point he speculates about whether everyday items from his time (specifically, a tacky porcelain dog) will become prized antiques in the year 2000. He was uncannily accurate.

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There really isn't much action, which disappointed some readers. So the book rests on the quality of the the narrator's tangential stories and pratfalls that befall our hapless hypochondriacs. IMNSHO, Jerome pulls it off wonderfully.

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Kewl New Words...

Beanfeast : an annual dinner party, given by an employer for his employees. Weir : a low dam across a river to raise its level. Riparian : relating to the banks of a river. Mouch (n) : Freeloading. Here : "...to come and mouch round the lock with their dogs, and flirt, and smoke...". Gramercy : an interjection expressing gratitude. Dosshouse : a cheap lodging; a flophouse. Baccy : tobacco leaves. Bally : euphemistic for "bloody". As in "what a bally/bloody/flaming idiot".

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Excerpts...

From the dim woods on either bank, Night's ghostly army, the grey shadows, creep out with noiseless tread to chase away the lingering rearguard of the light, and pass, with noiseless, unseen feet, above the waving river-grass, and through the sighing rushes; and Night, upon her sombre throne, folds her black wings above the darkening world, and, from her phantom palace, lit by pale stars, reigns in stillness. (pg. 14-15; an example of Jerome's descriptive talent).

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In the church is a memorial to Mrs. Sarah Hill, who bequeathed &pound, 1 annually, to be divided at Easter, between two boys and two girls who "have never been undutiful to their parents; who have never been known to swear or to tell untruths, to steal, or to break windows." Fancy giving up all that for five shillings a year! It is not worth it. (pg. 140)

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It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart.

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And I am careful of my work, too. Why, some of the work that I have by me now has been in my possession for years and years, and there isn't a finger mark on it. I take great pride in my work; I take it down now and then and dust it. No man keeps his work in a better state of preservation than I do. (pg. 152)

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He would go out in a November fog and come home with a sunstroke. (pg. 53)

Jerome originally set out to write a serious travelogue about the sights and history of the Thames. Luckily for us, he changed his mind and went the humorous route. His comedy was ground-breaking, and influenced British humorists (such as P.G. Wodehouse and Douglas Adams) for generations to come.

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TMIAB could stand on that alone. But it also captures the "spark" of the late-Victorian era, and gives us a wonderful look at life in 19th-Century English life : before the age of planes, cars, and MacDonalds. What a literary delight! 9 Stars.

Sunrise In The West - Edith Pargeter

1974; 340 pages. Book 1 of the "Brothers of Gwynnedd" tetrad. Genre : Historical Fiction. New Author?: Yes. Overall Rating : 6½*/10.

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Militarily, how do you resist an irresistable foe? That's what Llewelyn the Last, the protagonist of Sunrise in the West, is confronted with. He strives to unite 13th-Century Wales against King Henry III of England, who is trying to consolidate his realm as well. But the Welsh are an obstimate lot. They waffle between kowtowing to Henry and pleading for Llewelyn to come to their aid. Their lords keep hunkering down in their own separate castles; and Llewelyn's three brothers keep trying to carve out their own little niches of power in Wales.

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What's To Like...

The events of SITW are historically accurate, and the author uses Samson, a trusted attendant of Llewelyn's to flesh out the action with careful dialogue and canny insight. None of the characters are all black or all white, including King Henry. That's a nice change from the "Braveheart" sort of English tyrant.

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The book starts out slow, as Ms. Pargeter fills in the backstory and introduces you to everybody. But if you stick with it, things come together nicely. I found it helpful to read the Wiki article about Llewelyn the Last, which you can find here.

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There are some quibbles. There's a nice family tree at the beginning to help you keep track of all the nobles. But SITW is mostly about Llewelyn traipsing all over Wales trying to unite the clans, and a map sure would've come in handy. Also, the back cover blurb leads you to believe this is about two brothers, Griffith (who is Llewelyn's father) and David and their internecine struggles. It isn't. They're both dead and buried within the first third of the book.

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Kewl New Words...

Appanage : a source of revenue (usually land) given by a sovereign for the maintenance of a member of his family. Lout (vb.) : to bow or curtsy. Gobbet : a chunk of raw meat. Seneschal : the chief steward of a great household. Lief : gladly; in a willing manner. Traduced : bad-mouthed. Paynims : pagans; heathens. Trammel : to shackle. Bracken : an area overgrown with ferns. Loth (adj.) : contrary; here : "...and never speak loth word..."

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Exceerpts...

For we in Wales had then borrowed very little from this crowding English life that pressed in on our flank, that used coined money, and markets, of which we had scarcely any, and lived in stone houses that could not be abandoned at need, for they were too precious, and grew ordered crops that tied men to one patch of soil. And above all, few of us had ever seen what the English called a city. (pg. 36)

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'Your grandsire and mine had a vision of Wales that I learned from him, Wales united under one prince and able to stand up to all comers. There's no other way of fending off England for long. I went with my uncle not against our father, but against England, and sorry I was and am that we could not all stand together. Now you come running with the same old ruinous devotion to a right that will dismember Gwynedd, let alone Wales, and feed it to your king, whether you mean it or no, gobbet by gobbet until he has gorged all. And if I can prevent you, I will.' (pg. 94)

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'You have no right,' said the Lady Senena severely, "to speak so of either the king or the earl. It would do you more credit if you showed a greater respect for your elders."

He smiled at her placatingly, but he was unmoved. 'They are men,' he said, 'like other men'. (pg. 127)

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A few words about Edith Pargeter...

1913-1995; the Wiki article about her is here. She was a British author with Welsh ancestry, who wrote history, historical fiction, murder mysteries, and translated Czech classics. She penned her mysteries under the name of Ellis Peters, and her most-famous series, set in 12th-Century western England, features Brother Cadfael as a sleuthing monk. My local library has about a dozen of these Brother Cadfael books. I expect to read at least one of them before the year's out.

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A whale of a Wales tale...

Sunrise in the West is a great story, but I admit it dragged in spots for me. Maybe it gets better in the next three books. At 340 pages, this was just the right length. The publishers have now combined all four books into one, and it comes to a whopping 800+ pages. I fear that would drag me under. I'm glad I found this as a stand-alone book. 6½ Stars.

King Rat - China Miéville

1998; 318 pages. New Author? : No. Genre : Horror Fantasy; and the more generic "New Weird". Awards : Nominated for the Bram Stoker Award, and the International Horror Guild Award. Overall Rating : 8*/10.

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Saul Garamond's father takes a dive out of the window in his high, top-floor apartment. Inspector Crowley thinks Saul might have given him a push. Saul quickly finds himself cooling his heels in a London jail, while the police continue their investigation. But a strange being, King Rat, shows up and teaches him how to squeeze through the jail door and effect a miraculous escape. Ah, but the adventure is only beginning...

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What's To Like...

The tension starts quickly (the police are already banging on Saul's door at page 20), and builds throughout the rest of the story. The storyline itself, a strange goth fairy tale, is masterfully done. The relationship between Saul and King Rat is complex and changing. But best of all is Miéville's descriptive skill. When he has finished detailing some seedy part of London, you just want to grab a towel and wipe the soot off your arms.

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There are a few rough edges. The characters of Inspector Crowley and Loplop (the Bird King) are developed nicely, only to see both of them fizzle into oblivion before the climax. And when Saul saves Loplop from certain death at the hands of the Ultimate Evil, you'd think the method used would give our heroes a clue as to how to win the day. It doesn't.

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There also are a lot of pages devoted to a music genre called "Drum and Bass"; including a six-page sermon on pages 206-211. I'll grant that D&B is an important part of the story, but I frankly didn't need to be told all the technical minutiae of it.

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Kewl New Words...

There were Britishisms, Cockney slang, and Miéville's fabulous vocabulary. Whids : slang for a line of malarkey. (I think). Kip : to sleep. Glutinous : sticky, gooey. Crepuscular : dim, like twilight. Entresol : a mezzanine; an intermediate floor in a building. Cynosure : something that provides guidance. Sardonically : sarcastically. Scran : a collection of things to eat. Cagoule : a lightweight parka. Solipsism : the (self-centered) philosophy that the self is all you need to know to exist. Skedge : a lookout (?) Here, "on we trog, slower now, on the skedge for a place to set us down". Cosseting : pampering. Gormenghast : a fictional castle of enormous proportions. Used here in a figurative sense. Darkmans/Lightmans : the dark/the light. Funambulism : walking on a tightrope. Subaltern (adj.) : lower in rank or position. Ineluctably : inescapably. Insouciance : the cheerful feeling you get when nothing is troubling you. Bathetic : effusively or insincerely emotional. Shufti : a quick look around (slang). Fe : slang for ??. I never did figure out exactly what.

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Excerpts...

He read Lenin's exhortations that the future must be grasped, struggled for, molded, and he knew that his father was trying to explain the world to him. His father wanted to be his vanguard. What paralyzes is fear, his father believed, and what makes fear is ignorance. When we learn, we no longer fear. (pg. 27)

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"You can't go back, you know." King Rat looked at Saul from under his eyelids. ...

"I know it," he said.

"They think you did your pa, and they'll do you for that. And now you've slung your hook from their old Bucket they'll have your guts for garters." (pg. 53)

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I'm the one that's always there. I'm the one that sticks. I'm the dispossessed, I'll be back again. I'm why you don't sleep easy in your bed. I'm the one that taught you everything you know, I've got more tricks up my sleeve. I'm the tenacious one, the one that locks my teeth, that won't give up, that won't ever let go.

I'm the survivor.

I'm King Rat. (pg 319; closing sentences)

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"...let's put the 'rat' back into Fraternity" (pg. 317)

This is a horror story told in comic-book hero style; and it works beautifully. The tale's the thing here, therefore the few technical flaws ought to be winked at. King Rat is a great first-effort by China Miéville, and by all accounts, he gets even better in stories like Perdido Street Station and The Scar (neither of which I've yet read), and Un Lun Dun (which I have). Eight Stars.

The Wordy Shipmates - Sarah Vowell

2008; 248 pages. New Author?: Yes. Genre : Non-Fiction; American History. Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

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Why do (some) Americans believe that the USA has been chosen by God to be a shining example of goodness and freedom for the rest of the world, even if we have to invade, subjugate, and occupy them to make them see the light? In The Wordy Shipmates, Sarah Vowell makes the case that it goes all the way back to the Puritans of 1630.

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This book takes an in-depth look at those Puritans (not the same as the Pilgrims) who founded (what was to become) Boston in 1630 - their leaving friends and family behind in troubled England; their struggle for survival in those first couple years; the theological divisions that quickly arose; Roger Williams and his benevolent banishment; the annihilation on the Pequot Indians (it was God's will); and the vexing Anne Hutchinson, who touched off controversy about immigration control, being born again, and women's rights and roles.

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What's To Like...

A variety of characters are put under the microscope - the aforementioned Mr. Williams and Mrs. Hutchinson; the compassionate control-freak, Governor John Winthrop; the theocratic Rev. John Cotton; the pragmatic native survivalist, Uncas; and even the modern-day lightning-rod, Ronald Reagan. To Ms. Vowell's credit, none of these are presented as all-good or all-evil.

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You get in-depth insight into the mind-set of the Puritans. They are not simpletons, despite seeing messages from God in every event. They struggle to justify their theological idealism with everyday realities; and worry constantly whether they'll make it to Heaven.

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But what really stands out is Vowell's writing style. This is not the arid history your high school teacher used to force-feed you. She repeatedly ties it in to present-day Americana - things like the TV shows The Brady Bunch and Happy Days; Ronald Reagan and JFK; 9/11 and Bruce Springsteen; and elementary school Pilgrim pageants and Pentecostal three-times-a-week services.

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Kewl New Words...

Cathartic : tension-releasing. Wainscot : a panel forming the lower part of an interior wall, finished differently from the rest of the wall. Sachem : a chief of an Algonquin tribe.

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Excerpts...

The Old Testament Israelites are to the Puritans what the blues was to the Rolling Stones - a source of inspiration, a renewable resource of rifts. What Cotton is telling them is that, like the Old Testament Jews, God has given them a new home, a promised land. And, like the Old Testament Jews, God has printed eviction notices for them to tack up on the homes of the nothing-special, just-folks folks who are squatting there. (pg. 2)

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In 1630, however, the truth that all men are created equal is far from self-evident. Winthrop is saying the opposite - that God created all men unequal. To Winthrop, this is a good thing, especially since he's in charge. ... To a modern reader, this social theory smacks of "I need you to mow my lawn and you need me not to report you to immigration." (pg. 37-38)

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"We must not look only on our own things, but also on the things of our brethren." (pg. 56. a sentence that can have two interpretations - Christian compssion or Orwellian monitoring)

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Roger Williams is God's own goalie - no seemingly harmless pleasantry gets past him. To Williams, "Christendom", that affable word describing Europe and its colonies, is an affront to Christ. For this, he blames Constantine the Great.

Is he referring to Constantine, the first Roman Emperor to legalize Christianity in the year 313, thereby allowing Christians to worship in peace after centuries in the Coliseum as lion food? Yep, that's the jerk. (pg. 113)

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Is it streets of gold for me or am I merely lighter fluid for the flames of hell? (pg. 42)

If you aren't thrilled by history, The Wordy Shipmates might not be for you, as there is very little violence and bloodshed until about 200 pages in. Ditto for dittoheads. For everyone else, this comes with my high recommendation.

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Since my knowledge of the Puritans is sketchy at best (they were different from the Pilgrims somehow; they fled religious persecution in England to practice it here; later on they burned witches), this was an enlightening read. If you only read one non-fiction book per year (that's me!), this is an excellent choice. 8½ stars.

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Other voices...

Many thanks to Coach for turning me on to this book. You can read his review of The Wordy Shipmates here.

Lamb - Christopher Moore

2002; 444 pges. Genre : Humor; Fiction. New Author?: No, fourth book. Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

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The two years of Jesus' ministry are covered in all four Gospels. Two of them also give some details about his birth; and one tells about him going one day to the temple as a boy.

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That leaves a 30-year black hole in his life. Enter Levi, a.k.a. "Biff", a lifelong friend of Joshua ("Jesus" is the Greek rendering of his name), who is brought back to life in the present day by the angel Raziel to "fill in the blanks" by writing another Gospel.

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There are three parts to Lamb. The first 50-100 pages cover Joshua's childhood. The next 200-250 pages tell of his journey to the East to visit and learn from the Magi. The final 100 pages or so cover the same last two years of Joshua's life as the Biblical gospels do.

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What's To Like...

There is the usual Christopher Moore humor that I loved in You Suck, Bloodsucking Fiends, and A Dirty Job. For Lamb though, it is obvious that Moore also did a lot of research before writing it. That's new. I've seen this hypothesis - that Jesus' ministry was influenced by Eastern religions, before. It is as plausible (and as foundationless) as any other theory.

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Zaniness abounds. There are Yetis and invisible friends; lizard-bashings and self-defense systems ("Jew-do"); Kama-Sutra spoofs and angels taking daytime soap operas far too seriously.

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My favorite part of the book is the middle portion. Moore introduces the reader to the Asian religions. Balthazar teaches Joshua about Taoism and Confucianism. Gaspar trains him in Buddhism. Melchior schools him about Brahmanism.

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I found the other two sections slower-going. Moore uses the "childhood" section to show you what life was like for a Hebrew child growing up in Roman-occupied 1st-century Israel. Okay fine. But not much happens. And in the last part of the book, Moore really "reins it in" so as to not offend any readers as he retells the Gospel story. He succeeds, but it comes at a cost. The humor is reduced to one-liners by Biff.

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Kewl New Words...

Just two. Prophylacteries : a pair of small leather cases, containing strips of parchment with Hebrew scripture on them. One is strapped to the forehead; the other to the left arm. These are weird; google-image it to see them. Falafel : ground, spiced chickpeas shaped into balls and fried.

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Excerpts...

"Alphaeus," Joshua called, "does the work get easier once you know what you're doing?"

"Your lungs grow thick with stone dust and your eyes bleary from the sun and fragments thrown up by the chisel. You pour your lifeblood out into works of stone for Romans who will take your money in taxes to feed soldiers who will nail your people to crosses for wanting to be free. Your back breaks, your bones creak, your wife screeches at you, and your children torment you with open, begging mouths, like greedy baby birds in the nest. You go to bed every night so tired and beaten that you pray to the Lord to send the angel of death to take you in your sleep so you don't have to face another morning. It also has its downside." (pg. 50, discussing a career in stone-cutting).

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Our relationship with God was different from other people and their Gods. Sure there was fear and sacrifice and all, but essentially, we didn't go to him, he came to us. He told us we were the chosen, he told us he would help us to multiply to the ends of the earth, he told us he would give us a land of milk and honey. We didn't go to him. We didn't ask. And since he came to us, we figure we can hold him responsible for what he does, and what happens to us. (pg. 50)

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Camels bite. A camel will, for no reason, spit on you, stomp you, kick you, bellow, burp, and fart at you. They are stubborn at their best, and cranky beyond all belief at their worst. If you provoke them, they will bite. If you insert a dehydrated amphibian elbow-deep in a camel's bum, he considers himself provoked, doubly so if the procedure was performed while he was sleeping. Camels are wise to stealth. They bite. (pg. 135)

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God is a comedian playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh. (Voltaire)

The usual caveat applies - because the subject matter is religious, Lamb is not for the easily-offended. It is however much more tactfully done than some of the George Carlin Christianity rants I've read. Also, if Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism are all the same thing in your head, you may find the middle portion a bit tedious.

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For me, the last 100 pages were too toned down. Maybe it would've been better to just cut the book off when Jesus/Joshua came back home to begin his ministry. OTOH, there are a lot of people who think Lamb is Moore's best work thus far. So, 7 Stars for the childhood section, 10 stars for the Magi section, and 5 stars for the Ministry section. That averages out to 7+ Stars, and I rounded up since the Magi section was the largest portion of the book.