false 27632 3577033 0061719951 9780061719950 55 <![CDATA[Good Book LP: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3577033.Good_Book_LP_The_Bizarre_Hilarious_Disturbing_Marvelous_and_Inspiring_Things_I_Learned_When_I_Read_Every_Single_Word_of_the_Bible 3.80 140 Like many Jews and Christians, David Plotz long assumed he knew what was in the Bible. He read parts of it as a child in Hebrew school, then at-tended a Christian high school where he studied the Old and New Testaments. Many of the highlights stuck with him—Adam and Eve, Cain versus Abel, Jacob versus Esau, Jonah versus whale, forty days and nights, ten plagues and commandments, twelve tribes and apostles, Red Sea walked under, Galilee walked on, bush into fire, rock into water, water into wine. And, of course, he absorbed from all around him other bits of the Bible—from stories he heard in churches and synagogues, in movies and on television, from his parents and teachers. But it wasn't until he picked up a Bible at a cousin's bat mitzvah—and became engrossed and horrified by a lesser-known story in Genesis—that he couldn't put it down.

At a time when wars are fought over scriptural interpretation, when the influence of religion on American politics has never been greater, when many Americans still believe in the Bible's literal truth, it has never been more important to get to know the Bible. Good Book is what happens when a regular guy—an average Job—actually reads the book on which his religion, his culture, and his world are based. Along the way, he grapples with the most profound theological questions: How many commandments do we actually need? Does God prefer obedience or good deeds? And the most unexpected ones: Why are so many women in the Bible prostitutes? Why does God love bald men so much? Is Samson really that stupid?

Good Book is an irreverent, enthralling journey through the world's most important work of literature.

]]> 27632 3.59 422 127 49186 0812970527 9780812970524 37 <![CDATA[The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170357861m/49186.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49186.The_Genius_Factory_The_Curious_History_of_the_Nobel_Prize_Sperm_Bank 3.38 177 The Genius Factory, is the archetype for the cliché, "more money than brains." It was Graham who reckoned America was going to hell in a hand basket and the best way to halt the trend was to impregnate women with sperm donated by Nobel Prize winners and other overachievers (providing they were smart and white). Forget for the moment the not-so-thinly-veiled racism powering the whole eugenics movement that served as the backbone of Graham's Repository for Germinal Choice. Graham's super-sperm idea also conveniently overlooked the fact that the women carrying the babies would also leave a genetic imprint while ignoring the nurture-versus-nature argument. Though Plotz addresses these concepts in his book, the real reason to recommend it is its characters, the sperm bank progeny Plotz unearths through intense and covert legwork. The book's humor is also a selling point: "In abstract, donating sperm seemed fundamentally silly. But actually doing it was seductive," Plotz writes. "I had been accepted by the ultraexclusive Fairfax Cryobak! My sperm was 'well above average'! My count was 105 million! What's yours, George Clooney?" Elsewhere, Plotz writes, "By late 1980, Graham found himself presiding over a Nobel Prize sperm bank that had no Nobel Prize donors, no Nobel sperm left in storage and no Nobel babies. None of the first three women who'd been inseminated with Nobel sperm had gotten pregnant. In fact, no one inseminated with the Nobel sperm ever got pregnant. The Nobel Prize sperm bank would never produce a single Nobel baby." No matter. Graham's experiment, which did produce dozens of non-Nobel babies, was a success in one regard: it made for a heck of a story. And in Plotz's capable hands, it also makes for a heck of a book. --Kim Hughes]]> 27632 3.59 422 127 199092 0977743314 9780977743315 2 <![CDATA[Backstabbers, Crazed Geniuses, and Animals We Hate: The Writers of Slate's "Assessment" Column Tell It Like It Is]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172616918m/199092.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199092.Backstabbers_Crazed_Geniuses_and_Animals_We_Hate_The_Writers_of_Slate_s_Assessment_Column_Tell_It_Like_It_Is 3.29 7 Drawing on seven years of Slate's Assessment column, editor David Plotz has compiled a pop-culture reference guide to everyone from L. Ron Hubbard to Scooby-Doo, everything from Bill O'Reilly's secret snobbery to the sudden newsworthiness of a little gland called the prostate.

Both Mother Nature and Lobbyists are "Backstabbers." "Crazed Geniuses"? Antonin Scalia and the Cirque du Soleil, to name a few. And when it comes to the common ground between Frank Sinatra and Jesus Christ, they're "Dead, but Won't Go Away." Hilarious and brilliant, Backstabbers, Crazed Geniuses and Animals We Hate offers an incisive take on the society you thought you knew. (Did you know, for instance, that Kim Jong-Il has long been rumored to have a fondness for blondes?)

]]> 27632 3.59 422 127 7314174 0 <![CDATA[Good Book]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7314174-good-book 3.50 2 27632 3.59 422 127