Microbrain:….The people on the Enterprise seem really surprised that there could be an inorganic life form, even though they just met a giant murdering crystal who kills entire planets.

You can order it here or here or here. $2.

Were I a wealthier man, I would surely throw down the hundreds of dollars necessary to purchase a copy of the Codex Seraphinianus, some of whose pages can be seen here.

50 Watts ran a contest for people to design the “Polish edition” of their favorite books, as a tribute to the rich history of design in Poland. The results are wonderful. Go look!

I got mine. Got yours?

“What’s the point? Well, the concept behind it was that religious people have a very high visibility. One assumes that anyone wearing a cross is identifying themselves as a Christian and a believer (at least culturally) or anyone wearing a star of David or any other religious symbol. This registers in people’s minds through the course of their lives and creates a mental presence of religious people.”

It Shouldn’t work. A liberal Jewish journalist/humorist dives in to the alternative universe of Christian pop culture and returns with a book that is simultaneously smart, informative, jaw-dropping, funny, and fair. That doesn’t seem possible, does it? Well, Daniel Radosh has proved that it is with Rapture Ready. Clearly writing for the coastal, lefty crowd he’s part of (and I am part of), it’s an introduction to all the Christian versions of the various pop stuff we’re all assaulted with every day. This is all very familiar, except much more Christ-y. And if learning about such a universe doesn’t interest you, give the book a try just for the humor. He’s got a great way of injecting a funny observation at just the right moment, just at the point where something has to be said. And there’s one full-out parody, a fake interview with Stephen Baldwin, which is both a classic and serves as a much needed breather for those of us who, um, get really creeped out by evangelicals.

But that brings up one of the most important things about the book. It is not a Christian bashing. Through it (and through the multimedia appendix on its website), you learn about all the non-crazy evangelicals too, the ones who don’t make the news. And you learn that there is good Christian rock music (my fave: mewithoutYou), and there are funny Christian comedians, and, perhaps most importantly, there are liberal voices in evangelical communities. (Some.) By combining several different approaches to the subject, Rapture Ready comes out a unified whole: part scholarly examination, part adventure, part funny-book, part cure for the all-too-persistent feeling that there is nothing but conflict in the future between evangelicals and secularists.