Origin

Diana Abu-Jabar has done it again!

Diana, author of "Crescent," another book of her which I read and enjoyed and is A MUST READ, has gone off of her beaten path of writing about food and wrote a thriller, a sweet and amazing mystery.

"Origin," whose plot I will discuss very little here, is a most excellent novel. The reason I will discuss little about the plot is because YOU SHOULD READ THIS BOOK YOURSELVES!

The book revolves around a central character, Lena, who is a hermit and works in the evidence room of the Syracuse police, specializing in fingerprints. There are a series of SIDS deaths which usually don't come in that often, but are happening rather frequently, and Lena has to find out why.

I measure how good a book is by certain ways in which I read it. When I read books I find myself frequently checking page numbers. I also am casual about the times I sit down and read, I am usually unobsessive, unless the book is really good.

With "Origin," I started out slow, in fact while we were in Coos Bay. As with most thriller/mystery books, they offer you only tastes before exposing you to a buffet of ideas that create a fantastic read. I read 150 pages of this book in one day, an unusual feat for me. I would rarely check the page numbers, even when setting the book down to do silly things like...work. I also found that any spare moment I had became filled with the desire to read more, find out more, try to figure it out on my own, etc. FUN, is an excellent word to describe this novel.

I believe that in the future, if things get as difficult as I believe they will, two types of folks will save us humans, and they just might be the same people: Those that know how to survive (find food, shelter, defend, etc.), and those that create art. Survival depends on more than just being alive, having reason to be alive is given to us through art. Diana Abu-Jaber is one heckuva an artist.

NOW STOP READING THIS BLOG AND START READING "ORIGIN!"