Strangely Ironic Book Meme

Here’s a fun little meme. I found this at The Atheist Blogger. Odd blog for me to be reading, but an interesting little meme idea.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next seven sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST

Well, the closest book was one I had just placed on my desk for reading. Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts by Regena Thomashauer.

“You want glow – you gotta have fun. That’s the simple equation, my beauties. While working hard is great, hard work without fun is empty and meaningless. And fun is not all “Ha-ha, whee!” It is whatever experience entertains and grabs you. Sometimes fun is going to a movie that is so sad it makes you sob like a baby. I rent Il Postino or Once Around when I want that kind of fun.”

Well, that’s seven sentences. I really like that. It’s a great book, by the way.

I’m going to do the same thing as the Atheist Blogger did and tag YOU. That’s right. If you’re reading this, and you have a blog, take five minutes and give us seven sentences from page 56 of the closest book. Go on. Make sure you link to me so that I can come find it and comment.

Free Hal Spacejock book

I’ve just downloaded the first Hal Spacejock book by Simon Haynes, and I foresee a very late bedtime tonight. Go get it and let me know what you think.

“An incompetent, accident-prone pilot is given one last chance to save his ship. An ageing [sic] robot is trusted with a midnight landing in a deserted field. And a desperate businessman is prepared to sacrifice both of them to get what he wants …”

Simon Haynes, the author, is also the genius behind yWriter and other great programs at Spacejock Software.

Free E-Book The Career Novelist by Donald Maass

I just stumbled upon this today and I thought I’d pass it along.

At the Donald Maass Literary Agency, the book The Career Novelist by Donald Maass is available as a FREE e-book. Gotta love that price.

Jewel of Medina

Have you heard about this? I’ve noticed quite a few bloggers talking about it. The Jewel of Medina is a novel written by Sherry Jones. It’s about the life of Aisha, the third, and apparently favorite, wife of Muhammad. (IS there one right way to spell that name? Even my spellchecker shows three options).

Probably the most controversial part of the book stems from certain facts in Aisha’s life. Well, one fact in particular. She married Muhammad at a very young age.

Like seven or nine years young.

To us today, that is horribly offensive. However, it seems that simply *talking* about Muhammad and Aisha is even more offensive. This I simply don’t understand. Sherry Jones has written an historical NOVEL. People do understand, I hope, that a novel is considered a work of *fiction*? Do they raise this much fuss over novels written about everyone they deem a prophet?

Adam – Mark Twain wrote The Diaries of Adam and Eve (1904, 1906), which is apparently hilarious “Genesis-bashing”. I could also list Paradise Lost and I’m sure there are others.

Enoch – I’m not sure if Enoch, the Ethiopian: The Lost Prophet of the Bible: Greater Than Abraham, Holier Than Moses is a novel, but the title sounds … interesting. I mean, that could definitely be called dissing old Abe and Mo.

Noah – Now I know there’s at least one novel about Noah. I remember reading it years ago. The only part I can remember is that one of his sons couldn’t consummate his marriage to his wife, so they used the unicorn’s horn to …. help. And that’s why there are no more unicorns. Oh, and the novel graphically described women peeing in the fields. I’m not certain these are the only two memories that the author wished to leave me with, but I’ll admit I can’t even remember the name. It was NOT a nice book. Amazon isn’t any help. They don’t have it.

Abraham – Orson Scott Card has written a novel about Abraham’s wife, Sarah, as well as one about his daughter-in-law, Rebekah. Also Abraham, the Dreamer: An Erotic and Sacred Love Story is about the love story between Abraham and Hagar. Definitely non-canon stuff here.

Isaac – There are too many to count. In fact, there are books *about* books about Isaac, even though, as my husband pointed out to me, Isaac actually does very little.

Jacob – The Red Tent: A Novel immediately comes to mind. My own work in progress has Jacob as a major character.

Job – I’m baffled at Job being recognized as a prophet, since I’m pretty certain the book of Job has always been recognized as a work of fiction. This is sort of like someone three thousand years from now honoring Harry Potter as a prophet. At any rate, other than the original story of Job, there is also Job’s Wife: A Novel

Jethro – Wow … I never realized he was considered a prophet. He was Moses’ father-in-law, in case you were wondering. (I had to go look it up) At any rate, I’m sure he’s been protrayed in some of the MANY novels and movies about Moses, like the Ten Commandments – this is the one with Charlton Heston as Moses and Yule Brynner as Pharoah. The Moses Riddle questions whether or not Moses misrepresented the commandments. And then there’s Zipporah, Wife of Moses: A Novel.

Moses – See above.

This is crazy. Islam recognizes over 124,000 prophets, according to Wikipedia, and I’m not going through all of them. However, there are five who are considered to be of most importance: Abraham, Noah, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. I’ve already covered the first three.

Jesus – I don’t think many of us have to spend much time pondering before we come up with books and movies about Jesus. Jesus Christ Superstar: A Rock Opera (Paperback) comes to mind immediately, at least for me. There’s a wonderful lullaby that Mary sings to Jesus – Everything’s All Right – that I like to sing to my babies. Also, high on the list would be The Last Temptation of Christ. I remember fundamentalist Christians getting upset about those, but I do not remember the Muslims getting upset. Oh, and let’s not forget The Passion of the Christ. I’d link to it, but searching “passion of the Christ” brings up 567 search results, and I’m not prepared to slog through them all. There are more, and many don’t even pretend to Biblical accuracy – like Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. I read that synopsis in my I-Can’t-Believe-I’m-Reading-This pose, fingers of my left hand tucked under my chin with my baby finger over my lips.

A search for “Jesus Christ” in Amazon Books brings up 11,025 options. While many of those are serious works, it is safe to say that he has been a popular subject for fiction.

Muhammad – I can’t find any. It seems that novelists are scared by the death threats. That’s reasonable. However, since we freely novelize the lives of practically every other prophet and important person, why can people not write novels about Muhammad? I do not write this in order to criticize or say Muslims are bad. I simply don’t understand.

10 Books Not to Read?

Timesonline has published an article by Richard Wilson listing ten books which one should *not* read. I am relying on one little sentence to bolster my hope that the author is being sarcastic: “The best way to fight the massed ranks of recommended books is with an offensively glib and, if possible, ill-informed reason for not bothering with them.”

Here they are:
10 – Ulysses
9 – Lord of the Rings
8 – For Whom the Bell Tolls
7 – À la Recherche du Temps Perdu
6 – The Dice Man
5 – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
4 – The Beauty Myth
3 – War and Peace
2 – The Iliad
1 – Pride and Prejudice

Now I’m going to embarrass myself and admit that I’ve only read Lord of the Rings, which I did love. I’m probably the only person in the civilized world who has not seen the movies. I did start War and Peace but daily life intervened. (It was so much easier to read weighty tomes while I was pregnant!) I thoroughly enjoyed the first chapter and want to return to the book.

So here’s my challenge to myself – I’m going to read each of these books (except Lord of the Rings) and write a review of them. This exercise will not only improve my writing, but it should help me develop some skill at the writing of synopses.