I just finished Mary Doria Russell's _The Sparrow_. This book shook me more than anything I've read in months. I no longer resent it for winning the Campbell over _An Exchange of Hostages_ (though I wish that one could have gotten an award too). I didn't want it to end. I didn't want to put it down, but I made myself do it, so that it would last longer. I cry easily at movies, while reading books, but I sobbed until my chest hurt reading this one. I was reading through the tears at points. I don't want to tell you too many details of the story; I don't want to spoil it. But I strongly recommend that you stop in a bookstore sometime soon, and read the first page of prologue. It's less than a page. That's not so much to ask, is it? And it's certainly not all sad. Not even close.
Remember that entry a little while ago about religion, and the question of faith? I didn't expect that I'd be weeping over that question. Not because of a book, at any rate.
Some Jehovah's Witnesses came to the door yesterday morning. I tried, I really did, but I *cannot* take that religion seriously. Pseudo-science drives me crazy. Some of the trappings of Catholicism seem equally implausible, but I grew up with it, so it doesn't grate quite so much.
Perhaps, with my visiting Salt Lake regularly, you'll be seeing me discussion of religion here for a while. Or maybe not...
And Happy New Year, to my Jewish readers.