I like this book. It’s not every day I can open a book of short fiction and find what reads like the transcript of an undergraduate philosophy seminar. Some readers might not enjoy the story Philosophy for Idiots for that reason, but I did. Equally, The Wager feels like a lecture on “A Course in Miracles” and, as a vignette on the differences between thinking about spirituality and its practice, it succeeds very well I think. As a short story, though, I can’t help wondering whether some careful editing might have improved the narrative. The title story Talk About God is, in my opinion, the best in the collection. This has as much to with my love of metaphysics as the tale itself. It is a fine miniature modern take on a spiritual crisis that, for once, doesn’t pander to the scientific worldview. For that alone, I am thankful to Mr Paci for this thought provoking story.
Reading Boot Camp is a fun beginning to the book and rolls along at a cracking pace. (I did notice that I was reading it on an e-reader!) In an interview, earlier this year, the author said that the book deals with “the art of teaching” and I think that the prose works best when he is teaching, speaking rhetorically, and is able to let the words flow as in the first story.
Thank you for allowing me to read this book which I will recommend to the more philosophically minded of my friends.
