As you may recall, I made a New Year's resolution to read 52 books this year. I got off to a great start, but since that first book I've found myself falling into old patterns, like watching too much TV and doing too much mindless web surfing. Since the whole point of the 52 book challenge was to change these behaviors, I'm not going to let a little early failure deter me from my quest. If I'm going to fail, I'm going to do so as publicly as possible.

With that in mind, I'm happy to report that I finished book number two last week: The Abstinence Teacher, by Tom Perrotta.

The summary from the book's front flap:

The Abstinence Teacher focuses on two divorced parents who each play key roles in the lives of other people’s children: Ruth Ramsey is the human sexuality teacher at the local high school who believes that “pleasure is good, shame is bad, and knowledge is power.” Her younger daughter’s soccer coach is Tim Mason, a former stoner and rocker whose response to hitting rock bottom was to reach out and be saved. Tim is a member of The Tabernacle, the local evangelical Christian church that wants to take its message outside the doors of its own sanctuary, and sees a useful target in Ruth Ramsey. Adversaries in a small-town culture war, Ruth and Tim instinctively distrust one another. But when a controversy on the playing field forces the two of them to actually talk to each other, an uneasy friendship begins to develop.

I found myself far more interested in Tim's story. His motivations were far more developed than Ruth's and his plotline simply more interesting. Because of this, his character rose well beyond the typical evangelical stereotypes and became the more sympathetic of the two characters. Through Tim's experiences, I was able to look beyond my own biases and begin to understand why his religious beliefs were so important to him. Perrotta clearly put in a lot of research to help him understand the evangelical world, and it shows in his writing. But that doesn't mean he ignores the darker side of the born-again world, which is represented in the book by Tim's manipulative (and probably mentally ill) pastor and a few of his fellow churchgoers.

Ruth, on the other hand, was rather one dimensional, and her struggles with work and romance never really come to life. By the book's end I was only interested in her story as it related to Tim's.

Let's hope I finish book number three in less than two months.

I finished The Ruins, by Scott Smith tonight, and what a memorable way to start my year of reading. I can't really say much about the story without giving away too much to those of you who haven't read the novel. Smith is definitely not one to shy away from the inevitabilities of a bleak situation. There was a stretch toward the end of the book's first half when I became impatient because nothing was happening, yet once I reached the midway point suddenly several horrific things happened all at once. A very good book, and as a result I probably won't be taking up gardening anytime soon.

That's how a friend I hadn't seen in over a year greeted me at a party during the holidays.

Harumph!

I'm not making any promises for the long term. Assuming I start doing this blog thing again, there will be some changes. For one, I've grown tired of this whole "No True Bill" charade. Nobody knows what it means, everyone assumes my name is Bill. Sometime soon there will be a massive rebranding, complete with a domain name change. I'll keep you posted as this happens.

Also, since a defined purpose causes me to blog far more frequently (see "Rock Star: INXS" for proof), I intend to have a couple of set agendas on which to report updates. First, I need to lose a lot of weight. And by "a lot" I mean over 100 pounds. I've been to the doctor, I belong to a gym, I see a nutritionist and I'm a member of Weight Watchers. I've pretty well backed myself into a corner on this one, and I need some public accountability to give me another push. I recently looked at some pictures of myself from my healthier days, and at the risk of sounding a bit cocky, I was a helluva a good looking guy. Did I know it then? Did I use it to my advantage? Nope. But I want to be that guy again, this time with confidence.

Also, apart from getting healthy, I made an ambitious New Year's resolution: I will read 52 books in 2008. I used to devour the printed word. When I was in grad school I always had a stack of books on my nightstand that I systematically worked my way through, and when I was in law school I read as many non-assigned books as I could to prevent myself from actually reading for class. Since I finished grad school in mid-2004, however, my reading has slowed to an embarrassingly slow pace. I rarely even pick up a book, and when I do I usually can't get past the first 10 pages. I jump from book to book to book, and actually finishing one is cause for celebration. Hell, on my Facebook profile I have three books listed that I am currently reading, and none of those is the one I'm actually actively reading right now.

Part of this inability to finish a book can be attributed to sleep apnea. I am always exhausted, and I have a hard time concentrating on just about anything. Reading sometimes makes me dizzy, gives me a headache or simply puts me to sleep. With some relief hopefully on the way for my sleep disorder, this should be less of an issue.

So with 2008 underway, I am currently trying to finish book number one: The Ruins by Scott Smith

Even as I struggle finding time to finish Elizabeth Kostova's enjoyable debut novel, The Historian, I've already got my eye on a couple of non-fiction books to take its place on my nightstand:

The Rescue Artist : A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece, by Edward Dolnick: "In the predawn gloom of a February day in 1994, two thieves entered the National Gallery in Oslo. They snatched one of the world's most famous paintings, Edvard Munch's The Scream, and fled with their $72 million trophy. The thieves made sure the world was watching: the Winter Olympics, in Lillehammer, began that same morning. Baffled and humiliated, the Norwegian police called on the world's greatest art detective, a half-English, half-American undercover cop named Charley Hill.

"In this rollicking narrative, Edward Dolnick takes us inside the art underworld. The trail leads high and low, and the cast ranges from titled aristocrats to thick-necked thugs. Lord Bath, resplendent in ponytail and velvet jacket, presides over a 9,000-acre estate. David Duddin, a 300-pound fence who once tried to sell a stolen Rembrandt, spins exuberant tales of his misdeeds. We meet Munch, too, a haunted misfit who spends his evenings drinking in the Black Piglet Café and his nights feverishly trying to capture in paint the visions in his head. The most compelling character of all is Charley Hill, an ex-soldier, a would-be priest, and a complicated mix of brilliance, foolhardiness, and charm. The hunt for The Scream will either cap his career and rescue one of the world's best-known paintings or end in a fiasco that will dog him forever."

Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her, by Melanie Rehak: "A plucky 'titian-haired' sleuth solved her first mystery in 1930. Eighty million books later, Nancy Drew has survived the Depression, World War II, and the sixties (when she was taken up with a vengeance by women's libbers) to enter the pantheon of American girlhood. As beloved by girls today as she was by their grandmothers, Nancy Drew has both inspired and reflected the changes in her readers' lives. Now, in a narrative with all the vivid energy and page-turning pace of Nancy's adventures, Melanie Rehak solves an enduring literary mystery: Who created Nancy Drew? And how did she go from pulp heroine to icon?

"The brainchild of children's book mogul Edward Stratemeyer, Nancy was brought to life by two women: Mildred Wirt Benson, a pioneering journalist from Iowa, and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, a well-bred wife and mother who took over as CEO after her father died. In a century-spanning story Rehak traces their roles-and Nancy's-in forging the modern American woman. With ebullience, wit, and a wealth of little-known source material, Rehak celebrates our unstoppable girl detective."

I first read Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" a little over a year ago, and I thought it was one of the most poorly written books I had ever read. And I loved every minute of it.

My enjoyment of the book had little to do with it's plot. Instead, what drew me in was the same thing that is still drawing people in: the book's wild historical claims about sacred bloodlines and secret societies with celebrity members.

After I finished the book, I tried to read "Holy Blood, Holy Grail." After the first 100 pages, two things became readily apparent. First, Brown's novel is essentially an adaptation (i.e., rip-off) of "Holy Blood," and second, the historical claims made in both books are complete fabrications.

Unfortunately, most of the criticism generated by these books has been in the form of "this-stuff-is-false-because-it's-not-in-the-bible"-type nonsense. None of these Christian loyalists could be bothered with something as basic as historical research. As a result, Brown's novel has yet to be effectively debunked in the popular press.

Which is what makes Laura Miller's article ("The Da Vinci crock") on Salon.com such a welcome addition to the debate. Miller outlines the major claims made by Brown, properly attributes them to "Holy Blood," and then explains why they are completely bogus.

In addition, the article points out that Brown now has a personal interest in establishing his claims as nonfiction because he is being sued by the authors of "Holy Blood." If the holy grail and the Priory of Sion are part of the historical record, then his adversaries can hardly claim exclusive ownership of them (which, of course, weakens their lawsuit). And since "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" is itself marketed as nonfiction, its authors find themselves walking a tightrope.

For all its flaws, I do still love "The Da Vinci Code." It made for one of the wildest rides a book has ever given me (for as long as I bought into the novel's version of history, anyway). But the process of discovering Brown's sources and losing faith in the whole thing, well, that made for a pretty wild ride, too.

[Salon] The Da Vinci crock