GOD IS DISAPPOINTED IN YOU: Still on my "Bible" kick, I followed The Gospel According to Peanuts and The Uncensored Bible up with God is Disappointed in You by Mark Russell. It has been described as "a frequently hilarious, often shocking, but always accurate retelling of the Bible, including the parts selectively left out by Sunday school teachers and church sermons... Stripped of its arcane language and interminable passages, every book of the Bible is condensed down to its core message, in no more than a few pages each... Irreverent yet faithful, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to see past the fog of religious agendas and cultural debates to discover what the Bible really says."
I started reading God is Disappointed in You once before, in conjunction with the actual Bible itself, but I got only a couple of books in before the "arcane language and interminable passages" mentioned above drove me away. This time, I decided to read justGod is Disappointed in You. One thing I learned both times is to trust Mark Russell. Every once in a while I encountered a section which I thought must be a joke or an exaggeration, but after checking it in the actual Bible I verified that Russell's was an accurate interpretation. Every once in a while I read an article in the newspaper about one school district or another's list of banned books. Every once in in a while, I see the Bible on such lists. I am convinced that the Bible would be censored much more often if people knew what was actually in it (not that that's what I am advocating by any means).
Uncanny: The Origins of Fear, by Junji Ito. Legendary artist Ito describes how he became a horror manga artist, and gives his thought on how to create horror manga. Interesting stuff, especially if you're a big Ito fan, which I am.
Stitches, by Hirokatsu Kihara, with illustrations by Junji Ito. Nine ostensibly true short stories (they read more like urban legends) of encounters with the supernatural by Kihara, plus a short manga by Ito adapting another of Kihara's stories. Entertainong stuff, a very quick read.
The Last Real World Champion: The Legacy of "Nature Boy" Ric Flair, by Tim Hornbaker. It's an oiinteresting book, and gives a thoroguh of Flair's career and personal life. If there's a flaw, it's that Hornbaker comes across as a Flair nfan, and tends to look for the positive side of Flair wherever possivble. He doesn't totally ignore the seedier sides of Flair's life, but nhe does tend to minimize and gloss them over, in an "Everybody was like that back then" sort of way.
THE GOOD BOOK: After (or perhaps "continuing") my Bible kick, my reading could have taken one of three possible tacks. After stepping back for a while to consider which direction I would take, I decided to go with The Good Book (2011), which is a "Humanist Bible" made by A.C. Grayling. That is, it says "made" by A.C. Grayling on the cover; on the frontice page it says "conceived, selected, redacted, arranged, worked and in part written by" A.C. Graying. It is divided into 14 sections:
Genesis
Wisdom
Parables
Concord
Lamentations
Consolations
Sages
Songs
Histories
Proverbs
The Lawgiver
Acts
Epistles
The Good
Actually, I started this book once before. I had just finished "Lamentations" and was about to move on to "Consolations" when my mother-in-law died. I had enough of death and sadness at that time, so I set it aside. I don't usually post here until I have finished a book, but my second time through I have just finished "Concord." I really like this book.
I recently finished reading Ballyhoo!: The Roughhousers, Con Artists, and Wildmen Who Invented Professional Wrestling, by Jon Langmead. It's an interesting look at the earliest days of professional wrestling in the U.S., from its earliest days as a sideshow in carnivals and circuses in the period after the Civil War through the1930's. The book focuses on the career of one Jack Curley, a promoter who was well-known in the early part of the Twentieth Century, but who is largely forgotten now. (His real name was Jacques Armand Schuel, and he was of Alsatian origins.
The book is an interesting read, and it does tend to confirm the answer that I had always heard to the question "Was wrestling ever 'real'?" (i.e., "Were the matches ever genuine contests?"), which is "Kinda. Sorta. Not Really." From what I've read, wrestling was mostly "fake" as early as the 1880's, and almost completely "fake" by the end of the 1920's. For the benefit of any non-fans who read all this jabber, wrestling had a strict code called "kayfabe", under which people in the business would never admit to any outsiders that wrestling was anything other than 100% legit. Seriously, guys lied to reporters, cops, judges, even their own families. Kayfabe lasted until about the 1980's, until it was done away with, largely at the instigation of one Vincent K. McMahon, although personally, I suspect that kayfabe wouldn't have lasted long into the internet age, anyway.
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GOD IS DISAPPOINTED IN YOU: Still on my "Bible" kick, I followed The Gospel According to Peanuts and The Uncensored Bible up with God is Disappointed in You by Mark Russell. It has been described as "a frequently hilarious, often shocking, but always accurate retelling of the Bible, including the parts selectively left out by Sunday school teachers and church sermons... Stripped of its arcane language and interminable passages, every book of the Bible is condensed down to its core message, in no more than a few pages each... Irreverent yet faithful, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to see past the fog of religious agendas and cultural debates to discover what the Bible really says."
I started reading God is Disappointed in You once before, in conjunction with the actual Bible itself, but I got only a couple of books in before the "arcane language and interminable passages" mentioned above drove me away. This time, I decided to read just God is Disappointed in You. One thing I learned both times is to trust Mark Russell. Every once in a while I encountered a section which I thought must be a joke or an exaggeration, but after checking it in the actual Bible I verified that Russell's was an accurate interpretation. Every once in a while I read an article in the newspaper about one school district or another's list of banned books. Every once in in a while, I see the Bible on such lists. I am convinced that the Bible would be censored much more often if people knew what was actually in it (not that that's what I am advocating by any means).
Uncanny: The Origins of Fear, by Junji Ito. Legendary artist Ito describes how he became a horror manga artist, and gives his thought on how to create horror manga. Interesting stuff, especially if you're a big Ito fan, which I am.
Stitches, by Hirokatsu Kihara, with illustrations by Junji Ito. Nine ostensibly true short stories (they read more like urban legends) of encounters with the supernatural by Kihara, plus a short manga by Ito adapting another of Kihara's stories. Entertainong stuff, a very quick read.
The Last Real World Champion: The Legacy of "Nature Boy" Ric Flair, by Tim Hornbaker. It's an oiinteresting book, and gives a thoroguh of Flair's career and personal life. If there's a flaw, it's that Hornbaker comes across as a Flair nfan, and tends to look for the positive side of Flair wherever possivble. He doesn't totally ignore the seedier sides of Flair's life, but nhe does tend to minimize and gloss them over, in an "Everybody was like that back then" sort of way.
THE GOOD BOOK: After (or perhaps "continuing") my Bible kick, my reading could have taken one of three possible tacks. After stepping back for a while to consider which direction I would take, I decided to go with The Good Book (2011), which is a "Humanist Bible" made by A.C. Grayling. That is, it says "made" by A.C. Grayling on the cover; on the frontice page it says "conceived, selected, redacted, arranged, worked and in part written by" A.C. Graying. It is divided into 14 sections:
Actually, I started this book once before. I had just finished "Lamentations" and was about to move on to "Consolations" when my mother-in-law died. I had enough of death and sadness at that time, so I set it aside. I don't usually post here until I have finished a book, but my second time through I have just finished "Concord." I really like this book.
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