My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lamb:The Gospel According To Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal is a well-written, down-right hilarious take on the lost years of Jesus Christ’s life. What happened to Jesus (here called by his Hebrew name, Joshua) in the years between being born and starting his ministry in his thirties? His childhood pal, Biff, has been resurrected by the angel Raziel to tell us all about it. And does he ever tell us!

While the sexual humour starts to get old around the middle of the book, it becomes less and less the central theme as the novel progresses. The story becomes necessarily more dark and serious as it approaches the death of Joshua, but even then, it largely remains humourous.

While the book was not perfect, and could probably have been about 100 pages shorter, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I certainly understand why Christopher Moore has so many fans. The man can write. More impressive, the man can write humour, which is no easy task (believe me, I’ve tried).

While I can see how some people might find the book to be blasphemous and offensive, I’ve got to agree with Moore. In the Afterward, Moore writes: “This story is not and never was meant to challenge anyone’s faith; however, if one’s faith can be shaken by stories in a humorous novel, one may have a bit more praying to do.”

Personally, I think a little knowledge of the Bible actually makes the book more enjoyable, because it makes it easier to understand a few of the more highbrow jokes. Don’t worry, though. There are lots of sex and poop jokes for those who don’t know squat about the Bible.

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My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book was interesting, but it lacked a coherent narrative. As such, it felt more like a textbook than a mass market work of non-fiction. It was a long read, despite it’s short length, as a result of the more academic style of writing that it employed (although, there was a shit joke).

There were a lot of interesting ideas, but in many respects they weren’t well tied together.

And, while Das’ suggestions for how to build a green future in Alberta are generally good ones, I don’t quite understand how Alberta is supposed to build hydro-plants on rivers in the Northwest Territories. Those resources belong to the people of the NWT (or, more likely, to the federal government, since territories don’t typically have the same rights as provinces). How can Alberta just go in and make use of these resources? Das does a poor job of explaining this, in my opinion.

In some ways, this book is the progressive’s answer to Ezra Levant’s Ethical Oil. Both start with a similar premise, but come at it from very different angles. And Das quickly moves past the idea that Alberta’s oil is the greenest and most ethical, and looks at how we can make it even more so.

Unfortunately, for all of its interesting ideas, the book is dragged down by the stilted writing style that I mentioned previously and by poor editing that occasionally makes it difficult to work out what Das is actually trying to say. It’s worth a read, but I’d definitely recommend borrowing it from the library rather than buying it.

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My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While I found the overall argument of the book—the oil from Alberta’s oil sands is the most ethical in the world—to be fairly convincing, I found a lot of Levant’s rhetorical tactics to be frustrating and over-the-top. He often employs the same techniques that he accuses oil sands critics of using, albeit for the opposite purpose, and his constant implication that human-caused global warming is probably not real gets tiring after the first couple of times he makes it.

Despite these flaws, it’s a good book that provides a perspective that is rarely presented in the debate around the oil sands. Even if you don’t agree with a word of it, it’ll give you something to think about.

Buy Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada’s Oil Sands on Amazon.ca (affiliate link).

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A few days ago, I finished reading Thomas Trofimuk‘s excellent novel, Waiting for Columbus. I cannot recommend it enough.

Yes, I know Trofimuk. We chat at Raving Poets and we’ve enjoyed the odd cigar together. But that’s got nothing to do with why I’m recommending the Edmonton author’s 3rd novel.

I’m recommending it because it’s an exquisitely written book that tells the beautifully tragic story of a man who shows up in a Spanish mental institution believing himself to be Christopher Columbus. He begins to tell his story to his nurse, Consuela, and soon she is entranced by and smitten with this mysterious Columbus. And so is the reader.

Like all of Trofimuk’s novels, Waiting for Columbus is a work of pure poetry. It’s evident, even in his prose, that Trofimuk is a poet at heart. It’s rare that a book evokes images and emotions in me as strongly as Columbus did.

Where Waiting for Columbus outshines Trofimuk’s previous novels—The 52nd Poem and Doubting Yourself to the Bone—is in its storytelling.

Though I greatly enjoyed both of his previous novels, Trofimuk didn’t really capture me with the stories he was telling. I remember the feelings of the books much more than the plots. They are, in a certain sense, like very long poems—they make the reader feel something, but the story takes a backseat to that feeling.

With Waiting for Columbus, Trofimuk manages to keep the poetic language that is so effective at giving his novels a powerful emotional punch, while weaving a truly engaging and unforgettable tale of obsession, love, and loss.

The story is so entrancing, in fact, that as I approached the end of the novel, I actually thought about closing it and putting it down for good. I wanted so badly for it to never end that I gave serious thought to simply leaving the last few chapters forever unread.

Ultimately, I did finish the book and was better for the experience of having read it. Waiting for Columbus is a novel that will stay with me for a long time. And it’s one that I’ll definitely read again. You should too.

The past week has been pretty uneventful, but I have done a few things of note. I’ve also got a few things of note coming up, which will probably result in full-length posts next week or later this week.

For now, though, here is my life in bullet points.

• I finished reading Ham On Rye late last week. It doesn’t count toward my reading list for this year, since I read most of it before the New Year, but I still felt it was worth commenting on. Like most of Charles Bukowski’s novels, the book felt like little more than thinly veiled dairy entries mixed in with plenty of bullshit and embellishment. However, I’ve read most of his novels and I will say that Ham On Rye is definitely the best of them. The writing is good and it’s an enjoyable read. Just don’t expect any sort of profundity at the end.
• I went and saw Daybreakers on Saturday. It wasn’t the best movie I’ve ever seen, but it was an interesting look at what the world might look like if most of the humans in the world became vampires. It was mostly a silly bit of fantasy with some gross-out action bits (lots of exploding bodies), but it was entertaining. It’s a good popcorn movie and, if you’re into vampire fiction, it’s worth checking out; but you might want to wait until it’s in the cheap theatres or out on DVD.
• Local restaurant Skinny Legs and Cowgirls launched their weekend brunch menu on Sunday. I wasn’t able to check it out, because they had already stopped serving brunch for the day when I called to inquire about it, but I did ask about the menu. It’s mostly standard fare—eggs your way, a few different types of eggs benny, and homemade granola—but with a focus on local and organic food. I’m particularly looking forward to trying to the wild boar bacon that’s available with a number of their brunch dishes.
• Back in 2008, Sara took me to Culina Mill Creek for my birthday. It was awesome. On Friday, we’ll finally be checking out the Highlands location for our two-year anniversary.  Like the Mill Creek location, Culina Highlands places a focus on locally produced food. The menus at the two restaurants are very different, despite the fact that they’re part of the same “family of restaurants,” but that’s probably to their benefit (and ours). You get a different experience depending which location you choose to visit. I’ll likely write a review of the restaurant after we’ve visited.

One of my goals for this year is to read at least 25 books. Last night, I completed book number one: Jesus Was a Liberal: Reclaiming Christianity for All.

Written by Unitarian Universalist minister Scotty McLennan, Jesus Was a Liberal, is an exploration of liberal Christianity in a modern context. How do liberal Christians differ from conservatives? Can a Christian be liberal with regard to divisive issues like abortion or gay marriage and still be faithful to Christ?

If this book had been written about 5 or 6 years ago and I had read it at that time—a time when I was exploring the Christian faith—I might be a Christian today. I may have still ended up in the Unitarian church, but I’d likely be there as a liberal Christian, rather than as the undefined pseudo-deist-atheist-internal-contradiction that I am now.

Christianity doesn’t have to be in opposition to gay marriage or a woman’s right to choose, says McLennan. He backs it up with both scriptural reference and examples from the cultural history of both the Jewish and early Christian traditions.

A Christian doesn’t have to believe that the Bible is the literal word of God. It’s OK not to accept the idea of the Trinity (in this regard, McLennan is a Unitarian Christian in the original sense of the term). It’s even OK to think of the virgin birth and resurrection of Christ as metaphorical rather than literal.

For McLennan, liberal Christianity is about applying reason and logic to questions of faith. It’s about finding the truth and value in the Chrisitian master story, even if you don’t accept it all as literal fact. The essence of Christianity, McLennan says, is love, often expressed in the form of social justice movements.

The book is well written and easy to understand. While McLennan doesn’t shy away from biblical scholarship and discussions of abstract ideas, like the mathematical concept of infinity, he presents these things in ways that are understandable for the layperson.

Despite having very little knowledge of the Bible, beyond the few books that I’ve actually read (many years ago), I was able to grasp everything that McLennan discusses in Jesus Was a Liberal.

While the book is primarily intended for liberal Christians, I think that it’s an excellent read for both non-Christians and conservative Christians.

It’ll help non-Christians (especially the non-religious) realize that Christianity is not the exclusive domain of the ultra-conservative, and that Christianity has been and can continue to be an agent for positive change in the world. And conservative Christians will be able to develop a better understanding of the more liberal members of their faith. Perhaps they’ll even realize that just because someone is liberal doesn’t mean that they aren’t a “real” Christian.

Jesus Was a Liberal: Reclaiming Christianity for All is available from Amazon.ca and in most bookstores.