Journal of a Soul (Pope St. John XXIII, 1964)

I'm wrapping up some loose ends from my recently completed Church History course. Only selections from this book were read in class, so I read through the remaining gaps last month.

If you don't know anything about Pope John XXIII, a straight biography may be in order before reading this. However, the documents presented here (mostly journal entries from retreats, plus some letters and short published pieces) will certainly get readers into the mind of the Pope, who was 80 years old when elected and not expected to do much more than get from Pius XII to whoever would succeed him. Reading even the earliest entries, it is no surprise that he would instead take on an ambitious agenda, crowned by the convening of the Second Vatican Council. Also remarkable was that this book was the first book of a pope's personal writings published with the active consent and support of the author.

Fans of Pope Francis will likely find Pope John to be an early inspiration. It isn't surprising that the book is available across academic and public libraries, though not necessarily every single one. If you are Catholic (or pointy-high Episcopalian!), the easiest thing to do may be to consult your parish library, if you have one. Editions vary (mine was from 1999), but they should all read the same, more or less.

Year Zero (Rob Reid, 2012)

I needed this book. It wasn't the greatest book I've ever read, let's be clear about that, but in a reading list where the science fiction has to share an increasingly crowded stage, and a general lack of humor through most of the titles, this was welcome.

The premise of Year Zero is completely ridiculous. It turns out that humans, while woefully under-civilized among the myriad races of the galaxy, do one thing really well, and that is make music. Unfortunately, they also have the most expensive legal system of copyright, resulting in a galactic bill in royalties, permission, and (mostly) fines totaling in excess of a dollar figure higher than all of the economies of the galaxy combined over the entire course of history. Needless to say, the more sinister elements of the galaxy have decided that if Earth were to mysteriously explode, then the whole matter would fix itself.

Enter the hero, music copyright lawyer Nick Carter (no relation to the singer or the Carter name in the firm he works for). Through some horrible mistake related to the parenthetical phrase in the previous sentence, ridiculously-dressed alien visitors with weird names approach him to figure out a solution to this colossal problem. Along the way, we learn about the infectious nature of reality television, and why Windows was a necessary invention to keep humanity in its place in the galactic order. You will also get an ample dose of Reid's thoughts of various types of popular music, much of which I found myself agreeing with, although I still haven't come around on Simply Red.

Leave any and all disbelief at the door with this one, or you will just be frustrated. This is primarily a work of satire targeting the music industry, which Reid (as one on the inside of the industry) does very well. If you are hoping for scientifically accurate depictions of alien culture, look elsewhere. This is more Douglas Adams than Arthur C. Clarke.

According to Worldcat, the book is fairly common at libraries, but as far as being a core title it is probably still too new to tell. I wouldn't be surprised if the e-book over time becomes a more common way of reading this title. Incidentally, the Korean translation popped up second in my search, which, if you read the book, you will find strangely appropriate, although the language gags may fall flat. Do not confuse this book with Year One, a nonfiction book about Harvard Business School by the same author.

A Passage To India (E. M. Forster, 1924)

To begin in an indirect way, I watched the first series of Indian Summers on PBS last fall. It was clear that Channel Four (and PBS) were hot to push it as a Downton Abbey successor and it felt pretty exciting to get in on the ground floor of the next big thing, even if it wasn't quite as good. Well, I can toss all that out since I just read it was canceled after the airing of the second series in the UK, so who knows if I'll see any more of it. Even if it ended up being a truncated epic, it made me realize just how little I knew about British India.

Therefore, the timing of A Passage to India wasn't bad. While I still lack a basic textbook knowledge of the period, at least I came in with a general sense of the look and feel of the times, which are nearly the same as the TV show counterpart. Of course, the plots are not at all the time, plus the writers of the TV show had the gift of hindsight. I had to keep this in mind when reading that Forster, who, in 1924, did not have a crystal ball or ESP.

Forster has a pretty keen sense of the fractures among the Indian people, between Hindu and Muslim, and well as the tension between English and Indian. He is not shamelessly for one side or the other, and I was changing my mind throughout the book as to who the "good guys" were in the book. I suppose Mrs. Moore could be seen as the most sympathetic, but her character was also quite passive as well as absent from about the halfway point onward. Dr. Aziz was the most convoluted character, a generally good man, but with a lot of dark thoughts and horribly framed for a crime he clearly didn't commit. Mr. Fielding is nice enough, but comes off as rather hapless. Then of course there are the definitely-bad English (Turton, Callendar) and definitely-bad Indians (Lal). Needless to say it's a complicated book.

Admittedly the first half was pretty dull, focused mainly on character development. However, that early focus paid off in the second half, following the Crime in the Caves, and thrusting the reader into an Anglo-Indian version of To Kill a Mockingbird. While there aren't any great big car chase sequences, there's enough tension to keep things moving along at a surprising clip during the novel's second half.

As you can see by the beat up old-timey cover above, I read a very old hardcover library version of the book. Since it is still required reading in many schools, probably at the more advanced levels of high school, you shouldn't have any problem finding a copy at the public library. However, if a banged-up threadbare book would embarrass your nightstand, a sparkly new paperback copy is easy enough to find, either at Amazon or a regular bricks-and-mortar bookstore.