Meanwhile, A Dozen Books were Read, Stacked and Waiting for Commentary...

I never stop reading books that I find. I mention them here so I will remember the titles, plots and authors later. By choosing "a book by its cover" last summer, I found Chris Kuzneski's "The Sign of the Cross"; it barely passed my "thirty page rule" (if I can read thirty pages without closing the book in disgust, I finish it). The plot centered on what seemed to be a conspiracy to cast doubt on the divinity of Christ by perhaps revealing that the entire persecution and execution of Jesus was a hoax orchestrated by the Romans for their own gain. A plot which seemed to be riding on the coat tails of the popularity of other recent novels. Though not recent, my favorite on this general subject is "King Jesus" by Robert Graves, it came out in 1946 and was truly mind-blowing for the time. But the writing is sublime. Anyway, Kuzeski's novel is full of crashing cars, high speed, impossible coincidences and testosterone splashing all over the place; blood too. However, Orvieto in Italy was a setting for part of the book. Somehow, I'd never heard of the that place before. I google-mapped and imaged, I used wikipedia, etc. with delight. So, I learned that even in a book I'm not enjoying much, I can benefit if I do research on elements in the story that interest me.