Book one out of twelve for the year. Reading a book by an author who has the same first initial of their last name as I do. That would be the letter L.
As you have might noticed, it is the end of May and this is my first post about a book from my list of reading goals for this year. It’s been hard for me to get into anything that wasn’t more complicated than a romance novel. It took me a long time to read this book but it was good enough for me to want to write about it and it was enjoyable.
No age lives entirely alone; every civilization is formed not merely by its own achievements but by what it has inherited from the past. If these things are destroyed, we have lost a part of our past and we shall be poorer for it.
The Lost Book of the Grail is about Arthur, an English professor who is anti-technology and is obsessed with finding a missing manuscrpt which was kept in the University library where he works. This missing manuscript is called the Book of Ewolda, and it holds the story of the founder of the Barchester Cathedral where he thinks the Holy Grail is hidden. Bethany, a younger American woman, arrives to the University to digitize the collection of manuscripts at the library. Her and Arthur butt heads (mostly him with her) until he realizes that she cares about the Holy Grail and preserving the manuscripts just as much as he does. The book is made up of chapters taking place in the present and the story of the monks that kept the Holy Grail a secret across hundreds of years.
I am not a religious person but there are many religious themes in the novel. It is not written in a way that tells you what to think about religion but since it is about ancient manuscripts, cathedrals, and the Holy Grail you can’t escape the religious aspect to it. It did not bother me at all and I thought the book was so well written that I felt like everything I was reading was something that really happened. There is only a touch of romance which to me brings more humor to the story than anything else. The main character was annoying at some parts but his curmudgeonly ways grows on you and at the end you are rooting for him. All in all a pleasurable read.
They sat in silence for a minute or two—a silence that seemed to weigh on Arthur’s shoulders.
It was as if all the prayers ever spoken in that holy place were sitting on top of him—prayers he still believed, in his core, had been offered in vain to a God who did not exist. He found the weight both peaceful and horrifying, much the way he found the idea of faith itself.
Book It Babe 