Well done, reads very much as a product of its time. I wish I had stumbled across it at the Borders or Raven in Lawrence the first time round.

Most of the bible verse versions were excellent - I have a bias against Jonah - even as a child I could never get over fish, whale, eh, what's the difference. I _knew_ the difference, at eight. Revelations was weird, but how could it be otherwise. Our dual heretical guides come across as the young men they were. ( )

Anyway, I can't stress to you enough how magnificent this book is. I keep trying to force various friends to at least read excerpts from the book, but the title seems to frighten people. My explanation of what it means never seemed to help any, so I'll refer you the authors' introductory essay, available on their website, www.killingthebuddha.com.

If you can't be bothered to visit the above links, here's the Sunday School version: Killing the Buddha is for people who are interested in religion but find the answers and explanations given in church to be a little too neat. This book is about the mess. It contains the work of thirteen different authors, each writing about a different book of the bible, and thirteen stories by the editors about their road trip around America looking for the face of religion. Most of the writing is brilliant, but of course some of the chapters are more brilliant than others. Before lending me the book, my sister raved on about Peter Trachtenberg's chapter, Job, which more than lived up to my expectations as a meditation on the nature of suffering. Samuel, by April Reynolds, strikes at the very heart of what has troubled religion since its very beginning: those who would use it as a means to gather power and glory to themselves. Though perhaps my favorite was Haven Kimmel's Revelation, which suggests, amongst other things, that basically John had gone off of his rocker when he wrote the last book of the Christian Bible. But maybe I'm just still bitter from reading (and discussing. over and over again.) that chapter so many times in Sunday School.

Then intertwined throughout are the tales of the people Manseau and Sharlet meet while driving around America. All of these stories are haunting, each of them moved me. But being a girl from Kansas, and more specifically, a girl who gets homesick when she watches Twister, it's not surprising that my favorite chapter was about storm chasers -- particularly, those who chase the super cells that create tornados. Swoon.

In short, Killing the Buddha is challenging, sickening, uplifting, and magnificent. Read it. Now. ( )

This was an interesting book, if for no other reason than it inspired me (a fundamentally non-religious person) to learn more about the Bible so I could actually understand the stories a bit better. At times, the essays were incomprehensible (so much so that I wondered why I was even reading the book), but there were other points at which I marveled at the spectacle. Definitely a must-read; whether you're a believer or not, I'm certain there is much to be gained from these explorations. ( )

Overall, this book was like the curate's egg: good in parts. The parts that the two authors wrote themselves were consistently interesting, as they traveled around the country meeting people in unusual religious traditions and practices. The parts that they gave to others, who were "rewriting" books of the bible, were spotty at best. A handful of them were interesting, but most of them were just not worth my time. I wish the authors had spent more time on the interesting and diverse individuals they met in their travels. ( )

Heretics do not usually define their own beliefs as hetetical. And if heresy means straying from orthodox beliefs without perversely rejecting Christianity, the authors and I are heretics. As my faith is grounde din Christianity, I thought in some cases Sharlet and Manseau painted the religion in a more positive light than fundamentalism ever could. It is an honest, fresh look at the books of the Bible re-written by known American writers with each "book" separated by a "psalm" describing experiecens the authors had on a religion seeking year-long roald trip. Enlightenment comes in the form of a cross dressing terrorist, a one-eyed cowboy minister, a pitifully faithful soul stranded in a bus on the side of the road.... this book is a thought provoking take on how wide yet so narrow religious convictions can be. ( )