Killing Jesus – Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard, 2013 ★★★½

The Greatest Thriller Ever Told

For centuries, The Greatest Story Ever Told has been retold as medieval passion play, as oratorio, as cinematic spectacular, as business primer, as Marxist parable, as Monty Python spoof, and even, if my English composition teacher was correct, as One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

Why not a potboiler thriller, too?

Killing Jesus, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard’s 2013 installment in their series of books on famous deaths, debuted atop the New York Times’ best-seller list, and remained on that list for the next 51 weeks. An expensive miniseries produced by the National Geographic Channel debuts today, on Palm Sunday, and is expected to draw strong ratings. It’s also a great conversation-stimulator, as close to 9,000 reviews drawing as many as a hundred comments apiece on Amazon.com would indicate.

Romeo And Juliet – William Shakespeare, 1591-95 ★★★★½

Love and Other Bad Ideas

Clicking through random web pages the other day, I came across a quote by the noted French author André Maurois that immediately set me to thinking about this play:

"We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity - romantic love and gunpowder."

I don't know if M. Maurois was referencing Romeo & Juliet in the above quote, but why not? It's the play for many when it comes to romance, featuring "archetypal young lovers" as Wikipedia's entry for the play puts it. Yet actually reading it reveals one of the most subversive depictions of the folly of love in Western literature.

Gil Hodges: A Hall Of Fame Life – Mort Zachter, 2015 ★★★½

Brooklyn's Favorite Dodger

Gil Hodges was by almost all accounts a great man and baseball player. 

He became a legend first as a slugging star for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1950s, then added to it by managing the New York Mets to their first World Series championship in 1969. Too soon after, he died, and people seemed to forget about him.

Mort Zachter makes a case for why Hodges should be remembered.