'Lamb' by Christopher Moore

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore (4)

This book was one of the rare ones that got a unanimous rating of 4 from the book club.  Everyone enjoyed this light-hearted look at the childhood of Jesus and his attempts to understand how to be a good messiah, as told by his irreverent best friend and protector, Biff.  Chris Moore has done something unique in writing glibly about the process of becoming the messiah without questioning that Jesus was the Son of God.  We agreed this is likely why he did not face the wrath of many when this book originally came out.  In fact it was refreshing to think of Jesus in such realistic terms: he always seems to have more wisdom than Biff (not hard), but has whimsy and innocence appropriate of a young man.  The number of laugh out loud moments in this book are too numerous to name, though one of my favorites (in addition to Biff introducing the theories of gravity and evolution) was how, when traveling in India looking for one of the Magi, Jesus would poke the Untouchables and giggle. If you want a good story that will make you smile and laugh, this is it. But make sure to read it with someone else, so that you can share all the funny bits!

'Reamde' by Neal Stephenson

Reamde, Neal Stephenson (4)

I have to say that I’ve had some good luck with books recently. I can’t remember the last time I have read so many ‘4’s’ in a row! Neal Stephenson always tells an interesting story, but ‘Reamde’ is one of my favorites. It is long, but so fast paced that I was always anxious to get back to it. In the spirit of ‘Cryptonomicon’, he has woven multiple stories together with many characters. It all circulates around Richard, the developer and owner of a Worlds of Warcraft type on-line game (sounds like ‘Ready Player One’, and it is a bit). In chasing down a virus (‘Readme’) into the game, characters are introduced that vary from Russian gangsters, Chinese hackers, British MI6 spies to jihadists.  While some of the connections of these disparate characters are pretty loose, the story is so entertaining, that I was able to forgive some of the coincidences in timing and location.  Stephenson also has put these characters in many places I have visited – from Xiamen, China to British Columbia. All through this book, I was thinking of what a great movie it would make – an action packed thriller slightly bent towards the nerd crowd.