Ginny Webb Loves Christopher Moore

By Venus Zine Staff
Published: June 20th, 2010 | 2:30pm

I’ll admit that the only reason I started reading Christopher Moore’s books was because my dad said of Moore's A Dirty Job: “This book was funny. You should read it.” But over the course of many years and many more books, Moore stands out as one of my favorite authors.

His sarcasm and dry sense of humor have literally left me laughing out loud in an airport surrounded by strangers. I should have known what I was getting into with books titled You Suck: A Love Story and Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal (just to name a couple). The crazy stories not only make me laugh, but also keep me turning pages—and quickly.

Whether he’s writing about Jesus’s fictional BFF (who claims to have invented sarcasm) or San Francisco vampires (and vampire cats), Moore’s creates the quirkiest characters, the most intricate plots, and subtle, clever jokes that weave all the madness together.

I’m finishing up Bite Me: A Love Story now. It's told from the point of view of a dramatic, Goth teenager who desperately wants to be Nosferatu. When I'm done, I can’t wait to start Fool: A Novel, Moore’s adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear, to hear the jester Pocket's side of the story. I bet more students would’ve enjoyed reading Shakespeare in high school if it had been told from Moore’s engaging, eccentric perspective.

Ginny Webb is a Venus Zine intern.