Sunday, November 09, 2008

S

Books:

I checked out Rob Stenett's The Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher (323/sound).
Quite enjoyable. The book is about this: Ryan Fisher, an atheist real estate agent, decides on a whim to place an ad with a Jesus fish inside a Christian paper. His sales begin to skyrocket, as his clients assume he his a Christian as well. To sell this lie a little better, he decides he better go to a church.
After attending for a while, and through a series of sitcomish circumstances, he begins to pass himself off as "Pastor Ryan".
And then he figures that he could probably start his own church.
And he does. Even though he doesn't believe in God, or Jesus, or any of the religious trappings that go along with running a church, he begins to grow his congregation and before you know it, he's attracting the ire of the other church leaders, religious fanatics and even Oprah Winfrey invites him onto her show to discus the state of religion in America.
The book does a nice job of looking at the state of religion in America, and makes some really good points about what a church should do and what people go to churches for.
The author is apparently a Christian - there were interviews at the end of the book, and the book was also labeled "Christian fiction" - but the story isn't preachy at all, and the fact that the protagonist is an atheist is highly commendable. (He never does convert, and there's no bashing of his belief [or lack thereof]) Plus, the book is highly readable, and while not really laugh-out-loud funny, it did cause me to smile for many of it. It was truly a "feel good" book.
It made me want to start my own megachurch and/or become a pastor. :) I mean, how hard could it be really?

CDs:
I grabbed two CDs this go around. Neither were remarkable, though.
Say Hi to Your Mom's Ferocious Mopes has a great title (and great band name) but sadly musically was just kinda meh.
Saturday Looks Good to Me's Sound on Sound was better, but really only just.

DVDs:
The "S" movie I watched was The Station Agent. I thought the performances were good, and I liked the characters, but there didn't seem to be a point to the movie. Maybe I was just missing something? [shrug]

I've already picked up the T choices, but I'm not super impressed with the music. So, that being said, I'm open to suggestions for anything coming up (U - Z). And remember that if you want to see whether I'd be able to check it out, you can go here to see if the library is carrying it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

For Z, I really want you to read A Night In The Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny. Though I admit I am nervous because I don't know what I would do if you hated it.

P@ said...

I'll keep the title in mind, Annika, so when I get to the Zs, I'll have something to look for. (The Z and the X weeks are probably going to be the toughest, so I appreciate the input.)

Anonymous said...

I have nothing interesting or productive to say. Just wanted to say howdy. I'm catching up on my reading. NaBlo has me waaaay behind because everyone is updating everyday and I'm supposed to be too but I've already missed 3 NaBlo days. Mostly because the mentalpause made me forget it was November.

Anyhoo...hi!