Bibliophile [Lamb]

Remember my review of Fool?

Fool (Christopher Moore)
This was pretty much hilarious. I literally giggled a few times on my commute while reading. I was recommended the author, not the book, but this was the only one of his works that the D.C. Public Library system had in Kindle format. If you have any interest in witty humor or in Shakespeare, you should pick this up immediately. It's a comical interpretation of King Lear, written from the point of few of Lear's fool, named Pocket...but don't expect any iambic pentameter here. This book was the definition of cheeky and irreverent, and I loved every minute of it. I can't read to read his other, reputably better works.

Get ready for more of the same, except this time, we're not mocking Billy Shakespeare...we're mocking the good Lord himself.

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

So I did some research: Christopher Moore is considered an "absurdist" novelist, and I love that title. It's so accurate. This story is literally absurd, in that it is absurdly bizarre and probably sacrilegious but humorous none the less. Blurb time:

The birth of Jesus has been well chronicled, as have his glorious teachings, acts, and divine sacrifice after his thirtieth birthday. But no one knows about the early life of the Son of God, the missing years -- except Biff, the Messiah's best bud, who has been resurrected to tell the story in the divinely hilarious yet heartfelt work.

Verily, the story Biff has to tell is a miraculous one, filled with remarkable journeys, magic, healings, kung fu, corpse reanimations, demons, and hot babes. Even the considerable wiles and devotion of the Savior's pal may not be enough to divert Joshua from his tragic destiny. But there's no one who loves Josh more -- except maybe "Maggie," Mary of Magdala -- and Biff isn't about to let his extraordinary pal suffer and ascend without a fight.

In satirical and comical form, our narrator Biff fills in the gaps from Jesus' childhood to his resurrection. Especially as I am a product of two Catholic educations, live in the Irish Riviera, and have a deep educational understanding of the church, I found this to be cheeky and entertaining. It's nice to feel like you're on the inside- I got all the jokes, the asides, the biblical reference points. I want to make my fellow Christian roommate K read this, as well as some of my college buddies, just for the laugh. If anything, this is very imaginative- while it's heavy on the comedy, it actually does have a plot that I found creative and plausible...ish.

So if you've been asking "what would Jesus do?", you can just buy this book and KNOW what Jesus did. I hear Moore is wildly popular, but I seem to be the only person I actually know who has experienced his work...join me friends!