Devouring Books

I finished three books in three days.

A Year of Living Biblically: A man lives the Bible as literally as possible for a year. Hilarity ensues. Stoning adulterer's? Check. Do not shave your beard? Check. Do not touch a woman during or for ten days after her period? Check. Do not lie. Well, he tries. He starts out agnostic, sure that religion is intangible, just a way people are deluding themselves. You can feel it in the way he writes in the beginning. A sarcastic edge to everything. But by the middle of the book, he comes around. He starts to quote the Bible more respectfully. He gives more space to explaining Biblical precidents for actions and while he struggles with some of the more puzzing/contradicting rules in the Bible, he eventually sees the good this experiment has done him. It was a great read for me, a lifelong back-and-forth believer. I'm not the most religious person on Earth, but I try not to lie, steal, cheat or murder my neighbor.

The Bourne Identity: This book blew my mind. Not in how good it was (though it was). But it literally blew up my brain with all of its twist/turns and complications. Picture the complicated plotlines from all three movies multiplied by ten and then stuffed into a few hundred pages. It was ridiculous. Three quarters of the way through, though, I was kind of sick of the intrigue. I just wanted to get to the end and find out what was really going on. The movies were a lot simplier to follow, but the book was more rewarding. I'm really glad I didn't try to read it aloud to Blake. He stopped me three times during There Will be Blood for plot updates.

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell: Wow. What? It goes like this: you know when you get together with a group of friends, just hanging out and you all try to top each other with ridiculous stories about your life? This guy wins. Hands down. Forever. His drunken antics are... legendary... and not necessarily in a good sense. It's amazing he's venereal-disease-free and still has a working liver. A good read. But not for the squeamish. As a side note: this guy's life is one big, completely drunken, string of sluts and random and dangerous acts with friends. Naturally, a TV network wanted to document it. Was it A&E's Intervention? No... it was MTV. The youth of America don't need to be taught how to be a frat boy by a guy who won't ever grow up. They're doing fine on their own... plus, it takes all the fun out of it.