Beer Review: Aventinus

Several years ago, I was lured into a charming pub in Ottawa’s Byward Market by a hand-written sign which promised a Caesar salad for $9.95 Canadian. Since this was back in the days when a Canadian dollar was worth about 70¢ US, it seemed like something of a bargain even before I noticed the small print that mentioned that that the salad was served with a side of sirloin steak and fries. Sold!

Down I went, and I discovered one of those charming, warm, welcoming pubs that make you feel instantly comfortable in a new city. The food was tasty and the service friendly. But it was the beer menu that won my heart. Without question, it was the absolute best I’ve ever come across. It’s scope was amazing, and each brew was accompanied by long, loving descriptions that were almost poetic in their exuberance. Sort of like a beer lover’s J. Peterman catalog. I actually purchased a copy of that tome to take home. What they call a menu, I call a shopping list.

My friends and I sent a happy afternoon sampling quite a few from that list (old hard-to-find favorites and wonderful new discoveries) before we realized that we were reaching our limit, and decided it was time to stagger back toward our hotel. But just before we left, one last brew caught our eye. The last line of the description said, “quite possibly the best beer I have ever tasted.” Well. How could we pass that up? Happily, we did not. That beer was called Aventinus. I can say without hesitation, the beer menu poet did not exaggerate.

Aventinus is a Doppelbock, but don’t let its darker amber color fool you. It’s sweet without being syrupy, full-flavored without being bitter, and complex without being overpowering. I’m honestly not sure I know how to describe the taste, except to say that it’s like drinking a loaf of Christmas spice bread. If there was such a thing as a comfort beer, this would be it.

Most pubs serve Aventinus in its own glass. When poured, it has a medium golden brownish color that reminds you of harvest time and autumn wheat. It is slightly hazy, and about an inch or so of frothy head caps it off. Take a sniff. The aroma is soft and gentle, sweet and wheaty with hints of yeast, but also complex. I’d swear that there is some light presence of brown sugar, along with clove and some ripe dark fruit, almost like raisin or plum. The first glorious sip leaves rings and a pretty lace of foam. The flavor is amazing, mellow and complex with hints of subtle dark brown sugar and, again, raisin and plum, with no real trace of hops or alcohol. Not surprisingly the flavor opens up more as the beer warms, leaving a very subtle, faint aftertaste of that’s almost like (I swear) banana and chocolate. Like I said, it’s like drinking a loaf of the very best Christmas spice bread.

And yet, surprisingly, it’s not as heavy as you might expect. The feel on the tongue is medium-bodied with a soft, silky feel and gentle carbonation. Aventinus is definitely a sipping beer, but one that goes down easily. The rich, complex flavor makes you want to savor it slowly, and one a night is plenty. If you happen to live in the Atlanta/Decatur area, it’s easy to find on tap at the Brick Store (of course), the Grange, the Book House, The Porter, and others. If not, well, it’s well-worth hunting down wherever you happen to be. Sip it by the fire with good friends, warm and smiling, and think of crisp, longer nights as the year rolls from autumn to the winter holiday season. It’s terrific all year ’round, of course, but it’s best right about now.

Tuesday Night Irish Music Jam Session at The Grange Public House

Update: The Grange is now called The Marlay House. Same owners, same terrific pub. Just a new name. The rest of this review still stands.

Nestled as we are between Atlanta, Decatur, Oakhurst, and Little Five Points, Carol and I are blessed to live in Pubtopia. South, more or less, you’ve got the good old Brew House Café and the marvelous new gastro pub, the Porter. West, there’re two that I think would make just about anyone’s favorites lists: The Local (a quintessential neighborhood bar with great food) and The Book House (a friendly, literary gastro pub named for Twin Peaks!), both on Ponce. East takes you to Oakhurst and the Universal Joint, or to East Atlanta Village. North (I admit that my directions are approximate at best) and you’re in Decatur, where you’ll find Twain’s (a wonderful literary-themed Brew Pub!), Leon’s Full Service (delicious upscale locavore), Eddie’s Attic (the best live music listening room south of the North Pole), and, of course, the Platoic ideal of the perfect pub: the Brick Store. I’m not even mentioning the world’s most ideal neighborhood bar, the venerable and beloved Manuel’s Tavern.

I should mention that all of these places are within a mile or two of us, and every last one is warm, friendly, and comfortable. All have very good to excellent pub food, with beer lists ranging from solid to jaw-dropping. Each has something special to recommend it: music at Eddie’s, the books at the Book House, barbecue at the Local, God’s own beer and whiskey menu at the Brick Store, and sports at the Brew House, for example. Indeed, it’s the embarrassment of riches that keeps me from naming a favorite: my own Cheers, as it were.

Which brings me to The Grange, also on Ponce in Decatur. It’s an Irish Pub, actually run by Irishmen, and it has a beer list to rival even the mighty Brick Store. It’s a comfortable, homey place—and one where you’re never going to hear that dang unicorn song. (They don’t usually have live music—for the stage-Irish pub Irish singers, you’ll need to head down to Limerick Junction in Virginia Highlands.) The upscale pub food at the Grange is amazing, even for Pubtopia. I have a hard time not ordering the slow smoked, Guinness braised brisket every time, but when I’ve managed to try the bangers and mash, the pasta with cream sauce, the fish and chips (excellent, but the James Joyce in Avondale still has the best), or even the burger, I’ve been exceptionally pleased. These guys have comfort food down.

If I had to pick a favorite, I’d agonize—but the Grange is probably the one I’d pick, if only because you can’t get in to the Brick Store on the weekends, you can’t park at the Porter, and Eddie’s is for music, not just hanging out. In fact, the Grange is the place I’ve chosen for my Raven Wakes the World book release “after party” November 7. (If you’re in the neighborhood, please join us! There will be live music that night.)

Again, any of the ones I’d mentioned could be a favorite. They’re all on the list, and I grin ear to er when I’d heading to any one of them. So why the Grange? The funny thing is, I didn’t care for it that much when it was the Angel, a British Pub owned by the chain that operates (or operated) The Prince of Wales, Hand in Hand, and Fox and Hound. I didn’t dislike it, mind. It was a pub—by definition, I liked it. And honestly, it doesn’t look all that different now. It’s elegant, with lots of brick an old dark wood, but it’s comfortable and welcoming. The food and drink menus are vastly improved, though. The big difference, though, is more intangible. It’s the feel of the place. Something about it just makes me feel comfortable and welcome.

There’s one more thing. Every Tuesday night, there is a Celtic music jam session. While most of us sit around in a circle, nursing our ales and listening in a sort of golden haze of happy ecstasy, some of Atlanta’s very best traditional music play—well, whatever you feel like.

Now, as many of you know, I am a huge fan of Celtic music. Once upon a time, I used to host a Celtic radio show, and my forthcoming novel Blackthorne Faire is just drenched in it. I don’t play, but the world needs audiences, too, and on most nights, I can clap along, or distinguish the difference between a jig and a reel. I’ve been to sessions all over the world, and I own CDs from some of the more legendary ones in places like Dublin and New York, but I’ll swear, these guys can hold their own with any of them. Heck, they’re tighter than a lot of studio bands. I’ve paid fifty bucks to hear Celtic bands that didn’t sound this polished.

If you’re good, you’re welcome to join in. If you’re a beginner, you’re probably going to want to sit and listen. But I’m told it’ll make you ache to practice until you’re good enough to join the circle yourself. For me, it’s enough just to listen, to let the music wash over me like healing waters. But I understand the feeling. Something in the music wakes the urge to make. I’m always dying to write when I leave there.

The music is (not surprisingly, given that it’s a Celtic jam) mostly Celtic. But there are a few diversions. You’ll hear some Old Time, some Bluegrass, and even some Gypsy Jazz. It’s all great stuff. And you can listen as you swap stories with good friends, and nurse a pint of your favorite. Here’s raising a glass to simple pleasures and good times. Good times that happen every Tuesday night are even better. Cheers, mates. I hope to see you there.

Vienna Roast by Atlanta Coffee Roasters

I’ve become something of a coffee snob as I’ve aged. I didn’t mean to, but there you go. I’ve loved coffee for ages — going all the way back to third grade Sunday School when my pal Steve Martin and I used to wander down to the fellowship hall to pour ourselves a styrofoam cup filled with milk and sugar, with a splash of coffee for color. By the time I reached high school, I was drinking it black, as God intended. Around then, I discovered Dunkin’ Donuts, and learned that, indeed, some cups of coffee are better than others. I was in college when I discovered that there are much better coffees, even, than Dunkin. Gradually, I discovered different beans and gourmet roasts, picking favorites from various specialty vendors, like Peet’s. If you appreciate a good, steaming mug, chances are that’s pretty much your story, too.

Turns out, though, I had one more lesson to learn. Fresh coffee — coffee sold with a week of roasting, and roasted within a few days of harvesting — makes an astonishing difference. Seriously. An astonishing difference. I made this discovery at Atlanta Coffee Roasters at the Toco Hills shopping center. It’s a micro-roaster. The coffee they sell is flown in daily. If you ever step into the back room, you’ll see great burlap sacks of coffee stamped with exotic ports from all over the world, all carefully selected, each waiting their turn for the artisan’s attention. Then, small batches are blended and roasted to exacting standards. It truly is an art, and hearing the roasters describe the process with such obvious love for their craft is a joy. By comparison, even when you buy your beans from a gourmet specialty house, the coffee you’re getting is usually at least a month or two old. If you’re lucky. It’s picked, shipped to the US, roasted, packed, warehoused, distributed, and … well, you get the idea. At Atlanta Coffee Roasters, the beans are roasted literally every day.

Much to my surprise, the difference in taste is amazing. There are entire new dimensions of coffee goodness waiting to be discovered. I mean that literally. There are waves of flavor that I had never tasted before. Dozens of varieties are available, flavored, blends, special roasts, you name it. My wife Carol and I have tried several. We used to get a pound of something different every week. We stopped that when we found what is, to us, the perfect coffee: the Vienna Roast. It is a dark roast, like a French or Italian roast, and absolutely full of robust flavor. But it is much smoother than you’d expect from a dark roast, and the aftertaste is almost sweet rather than bitter. It is, quite frankly, the very best cup of coffee I’ve ever head.

As I mentioned, there are other blends. All are worth a try. If you take the time to describe your tastes, the staff there will be happy to make recommendations. You can enjoy a cup there, or take the beans to go. We have ours shipped, so we never risk running out when we can’t work the schedules to make it to Toco Hills before we run out. Those of you reading this out of town, give it some thought. Even when you allow a few days for shipping, it’s still fresher than what you’re getting from, well, anywhere else that’s not a micro-roaster. There are at least two other micro-rosters in the area: Dancing goats and Jittery Joes (assuming Athens counts as local, and assuming they are still as good as I remember). Both are excellent. Neither are quite as good as Atlanta Coffee Roasters. By the way, Atlanta Coffee Roasters also has a very good selection selection of teas and brewing supplies. They also have WiFi. Although these days, saying a coffee shop has WiFi is a lot like saying, they have air. You just kind of assume.

“Palimpsest” by Catherynne Valente

Read Palimpsest

Catherynne Valente’s new(ish) book Palimpsest is a hard one to describe. Palimpsest tells of a city visited only in dreams. It’s a sort of sexually transmitted city. Certain people bear a strange tattoo-like mark on their skin … a map. Enjoy a moment or a night of intense passion with one of them, and in the heavy sleep after climax, you might find yourself in the city of Palimpsest. It’s a city of decadent magnificence, strange delights, and twisting, labyrinthine wonder. Of tall gothic cathedrals, bizarre masquerade balls, and bejeweled vermin. The story’s four characters all carry a wound of some sort, a loss. They’ve come to find solace in Palimpsest. They are bound together, each sharing what the others experience, pain and pleasure, tasting what the others taste. In the morning, they wake back in our world, marked with a strange tattoo, a map, and a longing to return. Like I said, it’s kind of hard to describe.

On one level, Palimpsest is a metaphor, of sorts, for the maze of sex and relationships, with all its beauty and danger. Sex can be a hollow, fleeting, even dangerous thing, or it can be sacred, the ultimate sacrament. The emotions are complex and churning. It marks and wounds, and it opens a longing in the depths of the soul. It’s a way that too people can build a world all of their own, a city of the heart. Once they do, they’ll always long to return there. That’s one level.

The joy of Palimpsest is in it’s lush, dense, baroque, poetic and, yes, even haunting language. Every line is lovingly wrought, a treasure. Every paragraph aches with loveliness. It is utterly sensual and at times even erotic. It’s also refreshingly witty. But it’s like rich food; it’s delicious, even decadent, but it’s hard to take too much at once. It’s a book to savor, in small bursts of bliss, and return to. It’s not a book for careless beach reading; it is for autumn, with blanket, firelight, and blood-red wine.

Descriptions are loving, detailed, and exact. But for all their beauty and precision, the images in Palimpsest are microcosmic, rather than macrocosmic. And see, that’s the genius of the book. Like any relationship, it requires a partner. Palimpsest is not a city created solely by the author, for all the magnificence of her words. More than any other literary world I can think of, it is created in collaboration with the reader. Read it, and pass your copy along to a friend, and the two of you will not be reading the same book.

You see, Palimpsest makes demands of the reader. If the foreground is created with detail and a master jeweler’s precision, the background (so to speak) is sketched, leaving the reader to fill in the rest. Don’t come thinking to read passively. It’s impossible. Like any relationship, it’s a partnership, a shared act of creation. The characters are fully realized, their personalities are defined to a breathtaking degree. You can’t help but ache for them. All the same, the portraits have holes, here and there, inviting the reader like open arms to enter and pour their own wounds in, to patch the empty places with parts of themselves. The characters, then, become, like the dream city of wonders around around them, something new. Marked and changed.

It’s a challenging book, and probably not for everyone. (What is?) The beauties here are uncomfortable at times. Lines are crossed, and yes, raw nerves are probed. But Catherynne Valente has discovered or created (I have no idea which) a unique way to couple with a reader, an astonishing act of sharing through creation. I found myself finishing each chapter breathless and basking in a warm smile of afterglow, longing for a cigarette even though I’ve never smoked. I also found myself wanting to pass the book along to friends to see what they might discover within.

“I Called I” by Desmond Drive

Listen to I Called I

First, disclaimer alert. The band Desmond Drive is fronted by a friend of mine, Bill Shaouy. So I’m a mite on the biased side. I think I’d be saying the same thing anyway, though. Because I really enjoy this album. It’s catchy, it’s fun, and it’s even a little bit wise. Nothing wrong with a little zen in your pop. That said, Desmond Drive was a breath of fresh air to me. While the roots are showing — influences of XTC and “Abbey Road” era Beatles are impossible to miss — the results seem fresh and original, and even contemporary in a retro sort of way. It’s nice to be reminded that pop doesn’t = shallow.

The tunes themselves are catchy pop, albeit a few degrees of mainstream center … hummable and, frankly, a joy to listen to. Thre lyrics are at time almost childlike: the song “Isn’t it a Wonder” it at first pass a simple catalog of ordinary things that suddenly seem miraculous. But upon a second listen, the joy of epiphany seems moving and filled with unabashed joy. “Your Name,” on the other hand, is a decidedly mature song, about enduring, spiritual love as opposed to the fire of infatuation that makes too many pop love songs seem banal. “My Tribe” is terrific, and expands the idea of relationship, a theme that recurs throughout the album, to found family, people made close by spirit rather than blood.

Give I Called I a listen. It’s fun, and its seeming simplicity hides surprises that reward repeat listenings. Besides, ow can you go wrong with an album that begins with a Greek Chorus?

“The Promised Land” by Dar Williams

Listen to The Promised Land

Naming a favorite artist is always a tricky thing—be they authors, musicians, filmmakers, painters. Whatever. Heck, naming a top ten list is usually nerve wracking enough. With musicians, I find it easier to pare things down and list by category. Say, my top favorite guitar players or live performers. This drives my music purist friends up the wall—they don’t seem to appreciate my running the light through a prism, so to speak, and breaking the beam into separate colors. I suppose I can see their point.

Nonetheless, when I saw the always-amazing Dar Williams at Eddie’s Attic here in Decatur recently, it struck me that she joins Tom Waits (Tom Waits for no man) and Leonard Cohen in my trinity of top favorite lyricists. Well, she did that night, anyway. Frankly, I think she would on most nights. For the record, I cheat a little. I don’t count Paul Simon, Lennon and McCartney (or George Harrison), or Bob Dylan, because I think they’re just givens. And my lists shifts a bit with my moods and circumstance, often including the likes of Jimmy Buffett, Johnny Mercer, Stan Rogers, Paul Williams, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Randy Newman, Kristen Hall, both of the Indigo Girls, Johnny Cash, and the Sherman Brothers (if you don’t know them, you haven’t been watching enough classic Disney). But when it comes to the sheer poetry, to elegant turns of phrase that strike unexpectedly deep notes of emotional resonance, Dar is just about always at the very top. One of her early albums features a song called “You’re Aging Well,” and at times, even after I’ve heard it a thousand million times, it can still sneak up on me unexpectedly and make me weep, because, for some reason I can’t quite explain, it reminds me, deeply in the heart, of my wife, Carol.

Dar’s new album, The Promised Land, is no exception. (I can call her Dar, because I met her once. She may not know it, but I am certain that we bonded.) Sure, Promised Land includes a cover tune: “Midnight Radio” from the rock musical Hedwig And The Angry Itch. But even there, Dar has made it her own. The original comes across as tragic; the cover, oddly, is almost soothing. The rest of the album is original, and its vintage Dar. Deep emotions that both cut and heal—and more than once, inspire a good laugh.

Social causes are never far from Dar’s music, although she never descends to treacley didacticism. Songs like “Buzzer” raise questions that are hard to answer, but the catchy, up-tempo melodies make them fun to listen to, and listen to again. “The Business Of Things” and “The Tide Falls Away” are almost astonishingly poignant.

If you know Dar’s music, you’ve likely already heard this album. If not, well, think of the realm of Sarah McLachlan and Sheryl Crow, with lyrics that can be mentioned in the same sentence as Waits, Cohen, Williams, Newman, Mercer, Dylan, and Simon. The Promised Land is a good place to start. But then, so is The Honesty Room, My Better Self, The Beauty of the Rain, The Green World, or … heck, any of them.Do yourself a favor and listen. Closely. Then listen again.

“Anointed: The Passion of Timmy Christ, CEO” by Zachary Steele

Read Anointed: The Passion of Timmy Christ, CEO

“When the Anti-Christ and Satan entered the bar, nobody took notice.”

That’s a great first line. Believe it or not, it’s not the start of a joke. It’s the first line of Zachary Steele’s novel Anointed, which is a scream. If you’re a fan of people like Christopher Moore or Douglas Adams, take a look. Sadly, (in my humble opinion) it hasn’t received the attention it deserves.

From what I hear through the grapevine, Zachary Steele was supposed to be interviewed on a radio show called something like The Open Mind, but they cancelled him when the found out the book wasn’t a slam on religion. Apparently, these are fundamentalist atheists that can only be open minded in one way. What it IS is a biting satire of the corporatization of religion, and it’s a scream. It’s a genuinely funny book, and well worth a read.

A word of disclosure: I know Zach, and his publisher, Mercury Retrograde Press, is also mine.

In Good Company: “The Company They Keep” by Diana Pavlac Glyer

Read The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community

Until the publication of Diana Pavlac Glyer’s new book The Company The Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community, I hadn’t realized how strong was my urge to be a “completist.” A new book out on the Inklings? By all means, I had to have it, period. This is fortunate, because if I paused to remind myself that I’d already read Humphrey Carpenter’s superb biography The Inklings, and then to ask if I really, really needed another book on the subject, the rational part of my brain might have said “no,” and (it’s not completely impossible) might have carried the day. And that would have been too darn bad. Glyer’s book makes a wonderful companion to Carpenter’s more well known volume, and stands very well on its own. Carpenter’s book is a biography; Glyer’s is an examination of the very significant ways in which, as a community, the Inkings challenged, inspired, influenced, and supported one another. The Company The Keep is a terrific and insightful read.

Carpenter’s The Inklings tells a rollicking good story. When Carpenter describes the group’s meetings at The Eagle and Child Pub, you can almost hear the glasses clinking merrily; you’d swear that, now and then, you catch, almost the faint and fading scent of sweet pipe smoke. You feel that you know Tolkien, Lewis, Williams, Barfield, and the others, a privilege as welcome as it is rare. Carpenter’s recreation of the now-famous conversation between Lewis and Tolkien on mythopoeia and the deeper truth hidden in the “lies” of myth is moving and profoundly beautiful.

By contrast, Glyer mentions this conversation only in passing. Her purpose isn’t to tell a story. It’s to explore. In her introduction, Glyer notes that early critics, from Gareth Knight and Lin Carter to Mark Hillegas and Carpenter himself, tend to downplay the influences the writers had upon one another. Glyer reminds us that Carpenter claims that the Inklings has, for example, no influence at all on the development of The Lord of the Rings. Glyer argues that this claim is at best unfair. Why would the men have continued to meet and critique one another’s works in progress if they perceived no value in the exchange? More, Glyer points out that common sense alone suggests that any group that meets over a long period of time — some seventeen years — is bound to change its members in ways both subtle and obvious.

So why would critics argue that the Inklings had no influence on one another’s work? Glyer builds a convincing case that Carpenter, Carter, and the others were reacting to earlier critics who accused the Inklings of a sort of group think, marching in almost corporate lockstep, writing interchangeable, virtually indistinguishable works. Confronted with such preposterous accusations, it seems natural that more sympathetic critics would have been quicker to defend each individual’s personal achievement and genius.

To start her study of the Inklings, Glyer looked at other communities of working writers, and was stuck by how both members and critics readily acknowledge the groups’ influence without diminishing individual achievement. More, Glyer found that members of writer’s groups and communities tend to influence each other in very specific ways: as resonators supporting and encouraging progress, as opponents issuing challenge, as editors, as collaborators working together, and finally as referents writing about each other. Glyer devotes long chapters to each, using letters, interviews, essays and other evidence to show how the Inklings filled each role for one another.

Glyer concludes that writers don’t create in a vacuum; every artist’s work is inevitably embedded in the work of others. Community doesn’t stifle creativity or individual expression. Rather, it fertilizes and nurtures it. For anyone interested in how a favorite book came to be, and especially for artists exploring their own craft, The Company The Keep is a must read. Her conclusions are well supported and her arguments thorough. Best of all, her book is fascinating and a joy to read. Any fan of Tolkien, Lewis, and the others absolutely must have a copy of Carpenter’s The Inklings. The shelf is equally bare without a copy of The Company They Keep.

“The Gnostic Bible” Edited by Willis Barnstone and Marvin Meyer

Read The Gnostic Bible

The Gnostics were mystics, mostly Christian, who believed that direct, personal experience of the divine, or knowledge, was the way to salvation. The early church, who regarded it’s own intervention and hierarchy as the means to salvation, viewed the freedom and independence of the Gnostics as a threat. In a relatively short time, the Gnostics disappeared. However, with the discovery of the “lost” texts in the Nag Hammadi library and the publication of Elaine Pagels’ definitive works, Gnosticism is currently enjoying a renaissance.

For those interested in the Gnostics and their actual beliefs and mysteries, as well as the early history of Christianity, The Gnostic Bible is a welcome resource. As a matter of fact, The Gnostic Bible is quite possibly the most comprehensive collection of Gnostic materials ever gathered in one volume.

The Gnostic Bible collects a wealth of primary sources, Gnostic texts from a wide variety of sources, including three continents and spanning more than 1300 years. The expected texts are present, of course, including the famous Gospel of Thomas, along with some unexpected resources. Making the volume especially useful to students of Gnosticwisdom traditions, the texts are well-organized into distinct movements of Gnostic tradition: Sethian, Valentinian, Syrian, Hermetic, Mandaean, Manichaean, and even, surprisingly, later Islamic and even Cathar texts.

I was especially surprised to find the Cathar material. Despite an amateur enthusiast’s fascination with the Cathars, I had no idea that such material existed. Until a “Nag Hammadi” or Dead Sea scroll” find of Cathar material is discovered, this is the best insight into their mysteries we are likely to find. Each section of texts is preceded by a brief but insightful introduction to that particular section’s brand of Gnosticism.

One thing The Gnostic Bible makes clear is that encapsulating Gnostic belief is a lot like summarizing Native American belief. Some themes and motifs seem to be consistent, but sweeping generalizations simply don’t do justice to the diversity of thought. The Gnostic Bible does an admirable job of expressing the surprising scope and breadth of Gnosticism, and the diverse traditions upon which it drew. The Gnostic Bible makes apparent the tremendous diversity of thought that exists under the broad category of Gnosticism, including Christian, Jewish, Muslim, pagan, Zoroastrian and Greco-Roman influences.

Most of the translations are newer (and presumably more accurate and complete) than those in earlier collections, such as The Other Bible (itself edited by Willis Barnstone, one of the editors of The Gnostic Bible) and The Nag Hammadi Library. I am not qualified to judge the authenticity or accuracy of the translations, when the collection has earned praise from such luminaries as Elaine Pagels and Richard Smoley, it’s hard not to take their word.

In addition to the original sources themselves, The Gnostic Bible contains an introduction summarizing current debates about gnosticism (by Meyer) and a truly fascinating overview of the issues of translation (by Barnstone). But perhaps the best editorial feature are the extensive notes that illuminate each text, enriching the experience by defining terms, providing historical and cultural context, and comparing especially puzzling passages to others for clarification. Many of the texts are being published here in English for the first time, making this a valuable resource for students, scholars, and anyone interested to one of Christianity’s most fascinating mystery traditions.

“Coyote Moon” By John A. Miller

Read Coyote Moon

As fond as I am of trickster tales, it’s hard to imagine anything with a title like Coyote Moon can be anything other than mythic. Coyote Moon doesn’t have a lot to do with coyotes, or even with tricksters (although I have a feeling that author John Miller himself may qualify), but the novel is certainly mythic. First, baseball plays a major role in the story. As the brilliant book Ground Rules: Baseball and Myth shows, baseball is a goldmine for mythic material. Add in liberal doses of cutting edge physics (if you’re not up on your science, don’t worry), possible reincarnation, and the search for meaning and miracles, and the result is a myth lover’s delight.

A rookie baseball player, missing a past but blessed with a cannon for an arm and a stellar batting average, a Mexican waitress, a physics professor, the widowed owner of a trailer park, and a band of retired, wandering Germans are all drawn together to a place in the desert. Why? None are certain. Only that it seems something is about to happen. Something that might reveal a great secret, something that might even be a miracle.

As the relationships of the charming and engaging characters deepen, they seem reborn and renewed as their inhibitions and old lives melt away in the desert heat. What happens exactly? The ending, alas, is vague, or at least open to interpretation. All miracles are. And John A. Miller is at least as much a trickster as the coyote who seems to wink at the needy seekers in the novel.

But as ambiguous as it may seem in the end. Coyote Moon is certainly not unsatisfying, and is never less than a joy to read. The lyrical passages on love, life, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and, of course, baseball and the meaning of life and destiny, are lovely, and the characters are a genuine pleasure to meet and share a journey with.

“The Genealogy of Greek Myth: An Illustrated Family Tree Greek Myth” by Vanessa James

Read The Genealogy of Greek Mythology: An Illustrated Family Tree Greek Myth from the First Gods to the Founders of Rome

The Genealogy of Greek Myth: An Illustrated Family Tree Greek Myth from the First Gods to the Founders of Rome is a handy resource. Packed with well-researched information, this book provides “at a glance” charts and surprisingly detailed information about the complex and often confusing relationships of the immortal Olympians and the mortal heroes they interact with.

The author, Vanessa James, spent eighteen years putting the Genealogy of Greek Myth together, and it shows. The data is more than complete, it is exhaustive. More, it provides a truly elegant and genuinely useful way to trace the dynasties and major events of Greek and Roman myth.

The information, which includes more than 3,000 entries for gods, goddess, heroes, monsters, and mortals and 125 biographies of key characters, is nicely indexed, complete, and easy to access and grasp quickly. The family-tree style arrangement makes it intuitive to explore. It’s also fun to read.

Nonetheless, what really sets this book apart is the fact that it is just plain beautiful. It is lavishly illustrated with photographs, a mythological star chart, classical art (reproductions of paintings, sculptures, mosaics, pottery, etc.), maps, and the previouslty mentioned charts, all in lush and vibrant color.

The uniquely designed book slides out of a slip case and unfolds to become a 17-foot long poster, making the information accessible literally at a glance. The result is an excellent reference that’s also a treasure to own.

“Spirits in the Wires” By Charles de Lint

Read Spirits in the Wires

Like Isabell Allende, Jonathan Carroll, and Alice Hoffman, Charles de Lint brings myth and magic out of faraway Middle-earth or fairyland and makes it live and breathe in the modern world. The result is no less wonderful, but somehow even more immediate and relevant.

In his novel, Spirits in the Wires, Charles de Lint once again returns to Newford, the fictional North America city that has been the setting for his recent novels and stories. Newford is more than a city; like the forest in fairy tales, it is a place where magic waits, hidden and subtle, just around the next corner, or one step sideways.

Spirits in the Wires gives surprising and fascinating life to the emerging new mythologies of the modern world, the spirits of the Internet, the World Wide Web, and even computer viruses. This isn’t really a new idea; Neil Gainman addressed similar ideas in his American Gods.

But where Gaiman relies primarily on cleverness, de Lint draws on heart, insight, and characters that we can help caring about. And that is what makes de Lint’s book succeed. He shows us exactly how myth surrounds us, even in a wired world of instant messages, PDAs, and computer viruses, and how it continues to touch and change us. It’s also a lovely reminder of how we all live stories, and our stories touch others in such wonderful and unexpected ways.

Spirits in the Wires is fun and entertaining. As a thriller, it’s a page-turner. But the myth and the poetry of the writing make it lovely, and the characters make it come alive. Our compassion for de Lint’s beautifully-drawn characters moves us, and makes the novel linger long after the last page is turned.

Speaking of the characters, some of them, especially the folklorist/author Christy Riddell, are familiar to those who have read de Lint’s earlier Newford novels and stories. It’s not necessary to read the previous works to enjoy Spirits in the Wires. However, it’s a much richer experience if you have. The four Newford story collections make a great place to start — epecially the stories Saskia, The Fields Beyond the Fields, and Pixel Pixies.