On the Bedside Table

The Darling by Russell Banks
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
Collected Poems by Philip Larkin
God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens

Just Finished - The Judas Field

The Judas Field by Howard Bahr -- The story of Cass Wakefield, a confederate soldier during the Civil War, his friend and compatriot, Roger; and the young orphan boy, Lucifer; who stumbled into their lives and onto the battlefied during this country's most horrific war. Twenty years after the war, the scars that linger, both literal and psychical on the landscape of the South, her defenders and her citizenry culminate in a shocking but inevitable climax.
This book left me weeping openly and dumbstruck at the talent that Howard Bahr has for some of the most beautiful, poetic prose I have ever encountered, even while describing the ugliest moments of our country's history. The characters in this book grappled not only with an enemy of their own house, but the ghosts of the dead and dying whose presence was ever constant, a God whose seeming indifference challenged their faith, and -- most of all -- with themselves, whose demons followed them from the battlefield to haunt their dreams and waking moments forevermore.
With dialogue typical of the quaint Southern patois 150 years ago, Bahr's characters are sympathetic, even while committing atrocities that would shock today's calloused reader:

Well," said Lucian, "there's no sense in praying a-tall, if you ask me."
Roger laughed again and slapped the boy's leg. "There you have it," he said. "No sense in it a-tall. To ask for protection is pure lunacy, lad, especially when the other side is doing the same, and to the same address. That's exactly why everybody prays, you see; it's all we have to offer commensurate with the madness."
"But if God -- "

"Hush," said Roger. "Be still and listen. You must have your faith, and it will be sore tested when you see what's left after a fight, what's hanging in the trees and spread over the ground -- that place you saw back at Muscle Shoals was a garden by comparison. You look around, and you might be tempted to ask where God was when all this happened."
"Well, where was He?" asked Lucian.
"He was there," said Roger. "He was there all along, watching and grieving...." "...We have lost pretty much everything, but faith we must not lose. That is why we pray, and fervently -- but not for preservation, mind. That article is left to you and your pards, not to God. To ask Him for it, and be spared when so many are not, will only doom your faith."
"What do you ask for, then?" said the boy.
Roger pulled the quilt around his shoulders. "To be forgiven," he said.
They were quiet then. The snow swirled around them, borne on a cutting wind, and through it ghostly shapes began to pass, bending, searching, speaking softly. Little stars of candlelight pricked out in the whiteness as men gathered their belongings. A murmur rose from the camps; the army was stirring, its vast and myriad soul already in motion toward the mystery that waited beyond the river.

This is not a book for the lazy reader. It's a book to be savored, to marvel at, to grieve over. A beautiful, beautiful book.

www.bambooks.biz

Just Finished - Water for Elephants

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen - This is the story of Jacob Jankowski, a 90-year-old nursing-home resident coming to terms with age and disability as seen through the lens of his past as a lonely young man during the Depression whose leap onto a night train landed him in the middle of a three-ring circus -- literally.
This was a quick, easy read that couldn't help but be fun. What's not to love about the down-and-dirty story of Carnival workers on a traveling circus, replete with a menagerie of big cats, camels, chimps and one big, tragic, lovable elephant named Rosie?
It's a simple story where the villians are villians and the heros are...well, human. Doesn't require too much thinking on the part of the reader -- just the kind of book to take to the beach or absorb after a long day at the office.

www.bambooks.biz