July 12/365 Praise Be!

My Kindle holds two kinds of books – incredibly cheap ebooks, and books I planned on reading while I recuperated from my knee replacements (I come from a long line of arthritic folk). So that explains why George R. R. Martin’s series is there (the first knee), and most of Naomi Novak’s Dragon series as well (the second).

The liturgical mystery series, by Mark Schweizer, were bargain-basement purchases, but highly recommended by my dear Stan. When I read the first one, The Alto Wore Tweed, I cackled so much that Duncan left his computer game to check on me. I was lying on my bed, rocking with laughter, tears streaming down my cheeks. I sputtered something about angels, mannequins, a boy named after a beer, and he just thought, “Mom’s finally gone bonkers.” Everything is silly about these books, and the writing is uneven. I doubt that anyone raised in a religion-free world would find them more than marginally humorous. But I was marinated in church life: the politics, the long-simmering feuds, the strange ideas that cropped up and failed in services, and the bizarre characters who were often called upon to serve. These small novels are priceless to me.

[It’s] like Mitford meets Jurassic Park, only without the wisteria and the dinosaurs. —

Marty Hatteberg, The InChoirer, August, 2002