Daily Archives: May 23, 2008

Rapture Ready.

An old friend of mine from high school, Daniel Radosh, has a new book out. Rapture Ready is described (on the website for the book) as:

Written with the perfect blend of amusement and respect, Rapture Ready! is an insightful, entertaining, and deeply weird journey through the often hidden world of Christian pop culture. This vast and influential subculture — a $7 billion industry and growing — can no longer be ignored by anyone who wants to understand the social, spiritual and political aspirations of evangelical Christians.

One section of the book appears to be based on an article in The New Yorker that Daniel wrote, profiling Tammy Bakker’s son, who is now a minister himself, albeit with a style that’s very different from what you’ll remember about his parents. It was a nicely balanced piece, not a hatchet job by a long shot, but Daniel didn’t suck up to his subject, either.

I haven’t read the book yet, but I’m about to order it on Amazon, and you can, too. I’m looking forward to reading it.

Thanks to Squidocto at Muss My Hair for cluing me in.

In Which I Set a Bad Example.

I have corrupted my children.

Unfocused Girl came home from school the other day and announced that she is writing a novel.

Junior immediately said that he had written a book, too, and showed it to us: small pieces of paper, covered in his crayon drawings, stapled together on the side.

Unfocused Girl has the higher word count (technically, Junior doesn’t have any “words” in his book at all, but I’m not going to nitpick), with several handwritten pages under her belt. UG’s WIP is about The Adventure Friends and the Sword of Destiny, called, appropriately enough, “The Adventure Friends and the Sword of Destiny.” I’ve read the first two chapters, and they’re quite good. It is “about a journey to find true peace for the school,” says UG. From what I’ve read so far, true peace comes through a large, jeweled sword.

“It doesn’t come through the large, jeweled sword,” UG says. “It just helped us find what really gives us true peace.”

I have no idea where this is going. Tune in again for further updates. I was kind of rooting for the sword, though, in a “Peace through Strength” sort of way. A “Pax Amici Audacis,” imposed by the Adventure Friends on the other students, but it looks like UG is planning to go in a different direction.