Strange reading habits

I have just finished two books by Ann Rice. She is the one who wrote about the woman in Oregan who murdered her children in order to be free to seduce a lover and perhaps convince him to marry her. The two books I have read are a remarkable departure from her past writtings on criminal behavior. In these two she writes about the first years of the Life of Jesus from the time of his family leaving Bethlehem and going to Egypt and their later pilgrimage from Egypt to Nazareth. That book is entitled Out of Egypt. Rice states in the preface that this book is fiction but it is obvious that she has done extensive research on the culture and the mores of those times. She successfully weaves into the story many people and events that must have done much to shape Jesus life, and for me it filled in a blank space in my Bible reading. We know very little about that period of his life and without her careful research I would not have had any appreciation for the life of the Israelites and especially of Jesus extended family.

The second book builds on the first by tracing his life up to the wedding at Cana and events that led up to that wedding. Then writes about his time spent in the desert. We get little of the events of that experience but she treats his suffering, hunger and thirst with a realism that is deeply disturbing. His struggles with the devil are portrayed in a unique and creative way, and I got a sense of what Jesus three tests were really like. This book bears the title Road to Cana.

I wanted to post this blog in the hope that it may be of interest to some of my friends who may be looking for some reading that is a bit more profound that many of the current books that are hitting the shelves. Both books will soon be back on the shelves of the Walla Walla Public Library.