Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt - Anne Rice

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Category: Historical fiction. Acquired: Christmas 2007 or 2008. Re-read: July 2009 (Alaska cruise!) Briefly: creative and thought-provoking imaginings on the life of Jesus Christ as an 8-year old, as He first starts to become aware of who He is.

Comments: Like many, I was surprised when this book first appeared a few years ago, written by a well-known author of vampire-oriented horror tales. I was more than a little afraid of what I'd find between the covers. But Anne Rice's spiritual re-awakening is real, and is a story worth reading in its own right. Before returning to the faith of her youth, she questioned it thoroughly and deeply, and with scholarly completeness. In the end, she felt the critics who wanted to paint Jesus as non-divine, and the Gospels as late compilations and forgeries, totally failed to make their cases. She says, in fact, that their bias and even hatred towards Jesus drove them to some of the poorest scholarship she'd ever seen in her years of historical studies.

The story she's written is virtually all extra-biblical, although it is reassuringly accurate in areas where it does overlap with the scriptural or historical record, e.g. the descriptions of Mary and Joseph, the Jewish culture of the time, the actions of Herod and his successors, etc. It starts with the (extended) family returning from Egypt to Palestine, still under Roman occupation and torn by rebellion. Jesus is 8 years old, and is aware that he's different from others, but unsure exactly how, and why. (I find that plausible enough, given that he was fully human). He knows that there are topics that his mother and father won't let him ask about. He knows that there was some sort of excitement when he was born, but not the details. He knows that the local townsfolk of Nazareth talk about his mother behind her back, as if she were in some sort of disgrace.

Over the course of the book, Jesus learns bits and pieces of what happened in Bethlehem, but still hasn't figured out how it all relates to him. He senses that what he really needs is the answer to one key question: Why did Herod have to kill all the Jewish boys aged 2 or less? Then Passover comes, and the family goes to the temple in Jerusalem. Driven to find answers, Jesus goes to the leaders of the temple, becomes separated from his mother and father, and voila - we're back in Luke chapter 2.

I though this was a great book. While not intending to be devotional or inspirational, it may just expand and enrich your mental image of what a fully-human/fully-divine being would be like. We're lucky to have an author of the caliber of Anne Rice writing Christian fiction, and I'm looking forward to the next book in this series, Christ the Lord: Road to Cana.

Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood - Oliver Sacks

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Category: Autobiography. Acquired: Snoisle Library (looks funny if you don't capitalize the "i"). Read: June 2009 Briefly: memoirs of a young boy growing up in the 1920's and 30's, and learning the wonders of the molecular world around him.

Comments: This book begins "Many of my childhood memories are of metals", which gives you a pretty good clue where it's headed for the next 300-odd pages. Basically, it's a first-person account of a young boy who grew up in a household (and extended family) full of scientists, doctors and engineers. His fascination for metals is fueled by an uncle who happens to run a tungsten fabrication plant in town. The uncle's love for this particular metal is infectious, and he's more than willing to share his knowledge (and personal lab, and shelves of chemicals) with the 10-year old lad. (While the author acknowledges that he was given access to some outrageously dangerous substances - nasty acids, toxic gasses, even radioactive isotopes - he also decries how today's chemistry sets have been completely stripped of anything even remotely interesting). This becomes the launching point for a lifelong interest in materials ranging from inert gases to the rare earth elements.

The story is fascinating because it's not just the boy who is learning. This is roughly the same era when scientists were finally beginning to understand such fundamentals as the nature of the atom, how elements were arranged in the periodic table, how/why certain elements would combine, how to predict what their compounds would be like, etc. Sacks (the author) had studied the various elements enough to have a sense that there were some regularities involved (e.g. elements that were 8 numbers apart tended to have similar properties). So, when the periodic table was finally published in today's form, he describes it as a pivotal moment in his life, as it finally made sense out of so much that he had observed on his own.

So, this is the story of two journeys, both the author's and the science world in general. I enjoyed how Sacks intertwines the narratives so that the reader gets to experience the sense of achievement felt by both him individually and (presumably) those making the actual breakthroughs. And, the many anecdotes about growing up in this era add some human interest as well.

Final note - you'll understand and enjoy the book a lot more if you brush up on your high school chemistry first, reviewing such topics as atomic weight, atomic structure, oxidation/reduction, ionic bonding, classes of elements, etc. You know, just the basics.

Odd Hours - Dean Koontz

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Category: Time filler. Acquired: LAX airport. Read: June 2009. Briefly: twenty-something drifter has paranormal gifts, including the ability to see and interact with the lingering spirits of the recently-deceased, who seek him out for help in resolving their issues.

Comments: I've never been much of a Dean Koontz fan, but this series is a clever departure from his usual action thrillers. The books all feature a young man named Odd Thomas, who sees dead people. Actually, he only sees those who have unresolved issues making them reluctant to "go over" to the other side. In the first of these books, he helped Elvis Presley; in this one, it's Frank Sinatra.

But those interactions are actually just side plots. The main story always involves some larger mystery or crime to be solved, into which he is pulled via his other 'gifts' -- urges, premonitions, visions, etc. They're never very specific, and he's learned to just go with the flow and let things develop at their own pace. That makes for a very laid-back, thoughtful hero, in contrast with the traditional goal-driven gunslinger.

A great scene in this book is where Odd is being held prisoner and roughly interrogated by the bad guys, while the ghost of Frank Sinatra watches (seen only by him). On an impulse, he begins viciously insulting Sinatra's life, work and reputation, driving the ghost into a rage. As the bad guys watch in horror, things in the room suddenly start flying about, poltergeist-style, causing them to hide under the table and giving Odd the chance to flee.

There are three more books in this series, and I'm looking forward to reading them on future trips.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

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Category: Sci-Fi Humor Acquired: Years ago. Read: About once a year, ever since. Briefly: after Earth is demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass, the the last remaining earth man hitchhikes his way across the galaxy in his bathrobe, searching for the true meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything.

Comments: This blog entry is for the entire Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy, a set of five books (yes, a five-book trilogy) that I read about once a year. Really, I enjoy them that much - something about Adams' creativity, dry British humor, and skill with words just resonates with me. (As it does with many engineering-types - in my office, I can call out just about any line into thin air, and someone in a nearby cubicle will immediately respond with the appropriate punch line).

I won't go into the actual plot here, for that you'll just need to read the books. Instead, I'm just going to catalog a few of my favorite quotes, in hopes of giving you a taste of Adams' style:

• Arthur Dent ("This must be a Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays") earth man who discovers that his best friend is actually from a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse. This pays off when his friend uses his interplanetary hitchhiking skills to get them a lift away from earth shortly before it is demolished by an alien road construction crew.
  
  
• Ford Prefect is Arthur's best friend from Betelgeuse, and a roving reporter for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. After fifteen years of research on the planet Earth, he updates its entry in the guide from "Harmless" to "Mostly harmless", explaining that there are a lot of planets to cover and only so much room. (Trivia: fifteen years ago there was actually a British car called a Ford Prefect).
  

• Marvin ("Life. Don't talk to me about life.") super-intelligent robot, tragically equipped with a prototype human personality that keeps him perpetually depressed. Holds all humans in utter contempt, and whenever he interfaces with another computer it invariably ends up a suicidal wreck.
  
  
• Deep Thought is not actually a major character, but is the source of the famous quote ("Forty Two") upon which the entire series is based. It is a massively advanced computer, designed by a super-intelligent race for the specific purpose of finding "the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything". After 7.5 million years of computation, it comes up with the above answer, explaining somewhat sheepishly that, yes, this is definitely the answer - the tricky part is figuring out what the actual question is. Asked to solve this, Deep Thought designs an even more advanced computer, one "so advanced that organic life forms part of its computational matrix". This huge, round, blue-green computer is built and put into operation, but minutes before it is ready to reveal its results, the road construction crew arrives...
  

So, if you're ever in a group of people trying to answer some tricky question, and some wit suggests that the answer is "forty two", now you can chuckle knowingly. You and the rest of the engineers.

Sprinklers and Drip Systems - Lisa Kessler (Sunset)

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Category: Home improvement Acquired: Christmas 2009 Read: April 2009 Briefly: How to design, build and maintain a drip irrigation system.

Comments: This is one of those 100-page how-to paperbacks that you pick up at the hardware store checkout stand. When I put it on my Christmas list last year, I was thinking about putting in a system to water our chronically-dry front garden, which sits under our eaves. Little did I know that we'd end up remodeling our whole backyard this spring, and that my first efforts at drip irrigation would actually be for the new garden beds, not the poor front garden (which is still dry).

Anyway, thanks to this book (plus a lot of advice from Kari), the system is in and working fine. You just program the timers and walk away, and everything gets its water ration right on schedule. Is this a great country or what?

Let Justice Roll Down - John Perkins

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Category: Autobiography Acquired: Seattle Pacific University annual freebie. Read: April 2009 Briefly: Evangelical civil rights leader talks about his life and experiences.

Comments: This is the book that SPU students and faculty (and friends) were given to read this year, as part of their annual let's-read-it-together program. The setting is the American civil rights movement of the 1960's, and it's in autobiographical form, starting with Perkins' descriptions of his growing-up years in Mississippi. This part is pretty graphic - the abject poverty, the brutal racism, the lack of hope or opportunity, and the constant reminders that you're something less than human. As a friend of mine used to say, it's enough to turn you into a liberal.

As the story goes on, Perkins manages to escape his boyhood environment, and ends up on the West Coast, where he begins to make a life for himself. However, during that time he experiences a growing conviction that this is not where he's supposed to be. Ultimately, he packs up and moves with his family back to Mississippi, where he founds Voice of Calvary ministries to begin fighting the root causes trapping African Americans at the bottom of the social heap: poverty, poor healthcare, lack of education, poor access to jobs, etc.

Perkins was not about politics -- he wasn't a lobbyist, didn't run for office and wasn't looking to the government for solutions. Rather, his organization worked directly with people - providing education, healthcare, job training, leadership development and support for basic needs - the kinds of things that ultimately help people help themselves.

Helping people take responsibility for themselves - he must have been the darling of conservatives, right? Sadly, not at all. A recurring theme in the book is Perkins' puzzlement and hurt over how little support there was from the conservatives during those years - notably the churches. Frankly, I remember that well - not outright racism, just a feeling that things couldn't possibly be as bad as we were reading in the papers. After all, we had the right laws in place to ensure equality, governments who were dedicated to enforcing them fairly, and police who were always on the side of goodness and justice. Didn't we? So why were these guys being such rabble rousers? If they didn't like living in Mississippi, why didn't they just move? After all, this is the land of opportunity. And so on and on.

It would be another 10 years until the American evangelical church would get comfortable speaking out on social issues, and even then it would be limited to issues that could be boiled down to simple black and white. Abortion: bad. Prayer in schools: good. Those we could thump our chests about all day long, and it made us feel like real Christians. But we struggled (and still do) with complex issues such as affirmative action,, busing and equality of opportunity. These were (and are) hard issues without easy answers, and I think we just tended to stay on the sidelines.

Anyway, this is an very good book about an important player in one of the more important eras of our recent history. If you grew up in the 60's, the setting will be very familiar, and will perhaps have you thinking about how far we've come since then, and whether it's far enough yet.

S-Day - James Thayer

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Category: Novel Acquired: Christmas 2008, gift from Brenda Read: April 2009 Briefly: An imaginative look at the German invasion of England during WWII, had things gone just a bit differently.

Comments: This is a different story than the one you learned in school. That much becomes evident quickly, as the plot unfolds in late 1942. The Luftwaffe owns the skies over Britain, having destroyed most of the RAF. The German navy dominates the Atlantic Ocean, sinking the Queen Mary with 10,000 American reinforcements on board. And all of England waits as the German army masses along the French and Belgian coasts for the inevitable invasion. Not so good.

The story follows the general in charge of the American forces in England during the time leading up to the German invasion, and the days immediately following it. The narrative is provided by the general's aide, who is supposedly documenting the story for posterity, drawing from his own notes and his interviews with survivors from both sides. Ultimately, it's a character study of the general, and that's what makes it interesting.

The general's job is more than just to motivate and direct his troops. He also needs to figure out and respond to the German invasion plan, which is artfully hidden behind layers of ruse and deception. And, he must work in constant cooperation with the British military, some of whom still seem cranky about the American revolution.

The only other thing I'll say is that the invasion eventually does come, and the Germans take the beaches quickly and begin advancing towards London. But you're also aware that something's going to change, otherwise the narrator wouldn't be writing as a free man, and from a British/American point of view. Also, why does he keep referring to the general in past tense?

I'm not usually big on war stories, but Thayer is my favorite fiction author, and this well-crafted yarn is a good example of the reason why.