It sounds great from your description, but I’m curious about what it says about religion. What’s your take on that? Is it going to be another book that bashes Christianity? Just curious.

Is that Magic Mountain the German novel? Read that in college. Muy bizarro.

A friend and I were saying the other day that it is always a bad sign when you read the back cover (or the umpteen pages of praise inside before you get to the story) and all the reviews talk about the author’s OTHER book. Case in point: Mermaid Chair. I hate the way they include all that praise at the beginning, as if you were incapable of drawing your own conclusions. I’m the kind of person who skips introductions: just take me to the story. It’s rare for me to like a “book club” book, but I don’t think it’s the hype, I think it’s the fact that hype was needed–and that would lead into a discussion of how many bad novels are published nowadays, etc., and I should stop taking up space.

To see alpacas in Ann Arbor, take State Street past the Ann Arbor airport. Turn left at the first light past the airport (I think it is a flashing light). Go over the railroad tracks and turn left on Stone School, it is a dirt road at this point. Almost immediately on the right you can see the amazing alpacas of Ann Arbor!