An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church's Strangest Relic in Italy's Oddest Town by David Farley
Quirky, odd, laugh-out-loud funny, strange, informative..."An Irreverent Curiosity..." is all these things and more. David Farley and his wife move to Calcata, a tiny, ancient town that's near Rome but is really a place that exists in another time and dimension. Farley is ostensibly searching for Calcata's claim to fame: the stolen relic known as the holy foreskin--the petrified penile leftovers of the one and only holy redeemer.
"Curiosity" takes a leisurely trip through the centuries, teaching a bit about the medieval relic trade, and the various popes, kings and nobles who spent waaaay too much time obsessed by such things. The history is breezy and fascinating, as is the cast of characters in this utterly bizarre little town. Farley's trips to the Vatican library, his skuldugerous investigations, and his mostly unsatisfactory interviews with the various players in the relic's disappearance make this truly weird quest impossible to resist.
Farley is fun and witty and wonderfully self-deprecating. If you want to read a book that isn't remotely like anything you've read before, then join in the hunt for the holy foreskin.
"Curiosity" takes a leisurely trip through the centuries, teaching a bit about the medieval relic trade, and the various popes, kings and nobles who spent waaaay too much time obsessed by such things. The history is breezy and fascinating, as is the cast of characters in this utterly bizarre little town. Farley's trips to the Vatican library, his skuldugerous investigations, and his mostly unsatisfactory interviews with the various players in the relic's disappearance make this truly weird quest impossible to resist.
Farley is fun and witty and wonderfully self-deprecating. If you want to read a book that isn't remotely like anything you've read before, then join in the hunt for the holy foreskin.
The Body Shop: Parties, Pills, and Pumping Iron -- Or, My Life in the Age of Muscle by Paul Solotaroff
"The Body Shop" is heartbreaking, hilarious, and raunchy--with bad '70s hair, clothes, and music (if you're of the era prepare to be earwormed by the "Chicken Delight" jingle and "Disco Inferno")...in a phrase, it's epically good. Paul Solotaroff is a scrawny Jewish kid who blossoms after he discovers weightlifting, 'roids, and sex but ultimately loses himself in the maelstrom of late '70s debauchery and foolishness. His mentor, Angel, is one of the most brilliantly drawn characters ever; as is often the case, fiction could never conceive of someone as poisonously attractive as Angel. He's magnetic, dangerous, hysterically funny and, in the end, very, very sad.
Solotaroff is a brilliant writer; he's able to be both blisteringly profane (his descriptions of his 'roid-inflamed member will stay with you a long time) and lyrical. I hesitate to use the hackneyed term "redemptive", but in the end that's exactly what this book is. I especially appreciated the trip through the past. Being the same age as Solotaroff, I felt like I was back in my bell bottoms listening to Jethro Tull.
In the meantime, I'm off to the Universal gym to pump some iron.
Solotaroff is a brilliant writer; he's able to be both blisteringly profane (his descriptions of his 'roid-inflamed member will stay with you a long time) and lyrical. I hesitate to use the hackneyed term "redemptive", but in the end that's exactly what this book is. I especially appreciated the trip through the past. Being the same age as Solotaroff, I felt like I was back in my bell bottoms listening to Jethro Tull.
In the meantime, I'm off to the Universal gym to pump some iron.