Hi everybody! I’d like to apologize for not getting out a normal weekly post. I have a very valid excuse. I have become addicted to online chess. (Follow me on chess.com: I am playing under the name “bottlecaps3.“)

Attached is a link to an apt essay by HG Wells describing the ruinous effect of chess on artists (and their blogs.) Read it here.

Note, too, the Mr. Wells’s article is full of nods to the KJV (bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, the worm that never dieth, stuff like that. In short… it’s relevant!)

I’m currently working on a post which I think will be tickle more than a few funnybones. Working title: “Five Sigma Males of the Bible.” So be on the lookout for that–you won’t believe who is number one!

In the meantime, I will give a brief roundup of books I’ve read lately. My reading habits, however, have also been hurt by my chess addiction.

Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale.” This gets a thumbs up from me. The ending is kind of twisted–we all know Leontes didn’t deserve a happy ending–but to avoid any spoilers, I’ll just say that I was moved by the ending, and leave it at that.

Milan Kundera’s “The Incredible Lightness of Being.” This one also gets a thumbs up from me. Some of the philosophizing in it was a bit pretentious for my taste, and there were dull moments in the narrative for me, but I think Sabina made a great character, and Kundera’s observations about kitsch (kitsch is art that makes no mention of shit, either metaphorically or literally; think Hallmark movies) the observations about kitsch were funny and clever. Overall, I thumbs-upped it much more than I thought I would.

The Book of Isaiah. Thumbs Up. See my previous post, “Isaiah’s Strangest Verses.”

Charles Dickens’s “David Copperfield.” I love Dickens. I suspect that people who don’t enjoy Dickens just don’t like to have fun. Then again, I run a Bible blog, so what does that say about my idea of fun? Still, I read Great Expectations last year and felt that perhaps no writer I had ever read cared so much about making sure the reader had a good time. I resent accusations that Dickens was paid by the word. He wrote in his novels in serial, and he got paid because people loved them. Furthermore, the serial made his work accessible to a much wider audience, as whole novels were extremely expensive in Victorian England. His novels were also serialized in volumes with other works, and by writing as much as he did, he kept several of these periodicals and journals afloat. This meant they could publish other writers along with Dickens in the same periodical. I’m oversimplifying the process, but all this is to say that Dickens wasn’t taking advantage of people by writing as much as he did. He was a writer for the people. I know that isn’t as sexy as dying in obscurity, but let’s give Dickens a bit more credit, and stop saying “he was paid by the word” as though that is somehow a bad thing.

Oh, I should mention, I am halfway through David Copperfield, and I think I like it more than Great Expectations. It makes me feel like I’m once again that young kid who has just discovered the joy of reading novels.

A Touch of Jen by Beth Morgan. Okay, this is one that I have only just begun, as it is a contestant in VCU’s Cabell First Novel contest. And it is a first novel, so I ought to go easy on it. But so far, this feels flat as a pancake and the characters are not jumping off the page for me. More on this later, perhaps.

Ian McEwan’s “Atonement.” This is in progress, and another reading for a class I’m assisting. Only eight pages in, but it has made me laugh. I like books that make me laugh now, cry later.

Okay, that’s it for this week! Stay tuned for the next post.