Matthue Roth is an incredible writer whom I’ve gotten to know over the past few years online. (We travel in similar circles, have similar day jobs, and both occasionally contribute to the same group blog.)
His latest book (initially released as a Kindle Single, and now out in dead tree format) is an incredible mini-memoir structured around R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People. It’s good. So good that it made me cry about a quart of the way in, and then again periodically until it was done.
He’s blogging this week for The Jewish Book Council, The Forward, and (his usual home) MyJewishLearning.com about the book. His latest post grew out of a brief conversation he and I had on Twitter, so naturally that’s the post I’m sharing here.
Any respectable bible begins at the beginning. But in this one, the Garden of Eden is replaced by Isaac Newton’s garden, and the apple that denotes the downfall of man is replaced by the apple that drops on Newton’s head. The Good Book, an ambitious 597-page volume written by philosopher A.C. Grayling, is a bible without God, with humanism taking the place of religion. Keep reading …
(Image by Keith Greiman)
I don’t know that I’d have any more patience to read this cover to cover than I’ve had trying to do that with the Bible, but I’m certainly interested in trying.