Urban Think!’s Blog

A favorite of Jim’s, this fascinating tale is an imagined account ofthe history of the Hagaddah, an extremely rare Jewish illuminated manuscript. Muslims, Christians and Jews all have a hand in its creation and preservation in the story that Geraldine Brooks weaves around the treasure’s shrouded history. The clever heroine, Hanna Heath Sharansky, is funny and clumsy and entirely believable as she crosses continents

in search of the book’s origins. Covering a span of more than 500 years, People of the Book pays homage to the three faiths whose mutual respect and cooperation ultimately leads to a very moving hypothesis: look at how beautiful and filled with hope the world could be if we all managed to simply get along with one another. Don’t miss this spellbinder!

As impressed as I was with Anne Rice’s first entry in this series, I am even more delighted with this second book. Road to Cana, as beautifully written as Christ the Lord: Out Of Egypt, gives us the Jesus of the miracles, the Temptation in the desert, and the wedding feast at Cana. This season is an especially apropos time to read this new book, as it will bring you closer to the historicity of Chyrist (whether you are a believer or not). The episode at Cana should especially delight you, notable for the major role Mary, his Mother, has in its unfolding. This is a remarkable read. Give it a try!

Happy New Year 2008… time is whizzing along! It seems like just a few minutes ago it was 1327: that’s the year that Ken Follett’s new World Without End begins. He’s the author of Pillars of the Earth, a spectacular, grandiose novel about the lives of the people who build a towering cathedral in medieval Kingsbridge, England. This second novel centering on the mythical town promises to be as sweeping, as it’s over a thousand pages long… truly a book to get happily lost in!

I have always been fascinated by cathedrals, especially the way they are constructed. It’s amazing to me that these huge edifices were able to be constructed by the people of those centuries– as plague-ridden, superstitious, ill-educated, and unhygienic as most of them were, apparently providence saw to it that the human drive toward achievement was duly nurtured.

What fascinates and gratifies me is that most of the strongest, noblest, and most intelligent characters in the novel are women. More often than not– in fact, most often– it is a woman who saves a situation via intelligence– not through guile, or wiles, or sexuality. It’s refreshing to read in this day and age when the media seems to insist on featuring women who are either hard-core politicians or silly debutantes.

Oprah decided to name Pillars of the Earth as a current selection for her book club, and the publisher has released it in a spiffy new trade edition. The book itself has always been an Urban Think! Bookstore favorite, and it– along with World Without End– will fascinate and captivate you.

There’s a certain”nip” in the air these days, no doubt due to the fact that the temperature has been dipping down into the 40s and 50s. Too cold for me, actually; my blood has “thinned” since moving to Orlando in 1978, though there’s never been any scientific proof that warm weather causes blood thinning. If that were true, most of the residents of the Sunbelt would be spending their time at their doctor’s. Oh wait… they already do!

Managing a popular retail emporium like Urban Think! Bookstore is especially fun during the holidays. People come in to tell me that they’re taking a break from their lives by finding a quiet corner in the house and settling in for a good read. If you’re lucky, you’ve managed to find a book that follows you through the house demanding to be read while you brush your teeth, fix coffee, dress, drive… hopefully not the latter: too much reading while driving will distract you from the cell phone calls you are making.

Some books demand nothing more than a little space in your bed, quietly urging you each evening to read a few pages of the magnum opus that’s been taking up space on your bedside table for six months. For me, that book is Phoebe 2002, a deconstruction in verse of the plot and movie script of one of my favorite movies– actually one of the best movies ever filmed– All About Eve. The three poet / authors do a bang-up job with this book, which stretches for almost 700 pages. It’s filled with arcane literary references; movie quotes; lists; poetry; reminiscences; journal entries; and emails that the three produced while involved in this enormous task. If you’ve ever been the victim of an Eve Harrington– that is, the sort of person who wants your life, your spouse, or your job— then see the movie if you haven’t already. And then read the book! It is eye-opening, to say the least: the authors are fixated on the fact that every Eve has a Phoebe– and what exactly is a Phoebe? Simple: another Eve, albeit younger.