There was a horrible automobile crash and the driver of the car lay on the side of the road dying. A passerby said to him kindly, “why don’t you say a prayer?”
“I don’t know any,” said the stricken man.
“Haven’t you had any contact with religion?”
“As a boy, we used to live next to a Catholic Church.”
“That’s it!” said the well-wisher. “Just repeat what you heard in the church!”
“Okay,” said the injured man. “Under the B-15! Under the I-22!”
Tag Archives: religion
JotD: Oy vey (PWH00008)
JotD: God’s Total Quality Management Questionnaire (PWH00006)
The Ninja Daughter by Tori Eldridge (PWBR00166)
Plot or Premise
What I Liked
The story works on three levels for me. First, there is a mystery to solve involving multiple bad guys, politics, and a new subway being constructed (the motive is obvious, the details are not). Second, she helps women get away from their abusers, and feels a bit in places like the Jane Whitefield novels by Thomas Perry. Third, she is choosing romantically between a nice guy and a danger guy, similar to the Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich. I had a small sense of deja vu that I knew this storyline as it progressed.
What I Didn’t Like
As the first story in a series, there is a lot of exposition going on. Explaining Lily’s background, her mixed Norwegian / Chinese heritage, and even some of her relationship with her parents. Her angst with her mother is brought up about six or seven places in the novel, while 1-2 would have been fine. Equally, her father’s colloquialisms show up way too often, “doncha know”. Plus, she explains kunoichi about three times, as if we didn’t see it the first two times. The repetition was a bit heavy-handed.
The Bottom Line
Good debut, look forward to the next story
My Rating
🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪️ – 4/5 Enjoyable
Links To My Other Book Reviews
Articles I Like: Review of Seven Types of Atheism by John Gray
The Guardian published a review of an interesting-sounding book, and I thought I would share. The review itself isn’t anything special, I confess, but the book sounds good. It’s not available on Amazon Canada yet, but it appears to be an overview of the history of atheism and all its different forms.
The argument against the first five forms of atheism discussed in this book will be familiar to readers of Gray’s excoriating reviews and the greatest interest for some will lie in his discussion of the two final forms. One is entitled “Atheism without progress”, that is, without any assumption that human beings can be changed for the better…The final chapter, “The atheism of silence”, contains a surprise. It includes a discussion of a nearly forgotten author of a four-volume history of atheism, Fritz Mauthner, who argued for what he called “a godless mysticism”. Gray argues that there is in the end an affinity between the mystical element in Christianity, which stresses that God is beyond words and incomprehensible, and this form of atheism. “A godless world is as mysterious as one suffused with divinity and the difference between the two may be less than you think.”
Seven Types of Atheism by John Gray review – a fascinating study of disbelief | Books | The Guardian