Ben East Books

Tag: Religion

  • An Indian King from the East

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    Ben East
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    Every year brings new challenges to our myths. This year, astronomers turn our attention to the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn low in the night sky, an event said to have occurred two thousand and twenty years ago at the birth of Jesus Christ. The three wise men, we are made to understand, found…

  • The Elephants’ Thunder

    The Elephants’ Thunder

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    Ben East
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    Every night I hear the drums. Out there, on the fairgrounds in the dark, the big drums throb and the high snares crackle. Two weeks from now Ganesh will march the streets, Gunpatti’s thunderous procession to the sea shaking the city’s windows and doors. Hordes will carry idols of the elephant deity in waves across…

  • All Steeple, No Church

    All Steeple, No Church

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    Ben East
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    Does this structure look like a steeple with no church? My son thought so. Driving to the Nation’s capital on a beautiful spring morning, I pointed it out from the distant heights across the Potomac on the George Washington Parkway. This white symbol of the Republic can be seen for miles. The seven-year-old meant little…

  • Review–Does Harry Dream of Electric Sheep?

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    Ben East
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    The Marquis de Sade comedy hour? Adolf Hitler touching base with his inner child? A casual discussion of pillage and plunder with Genghis Kahn and Attila the Hun? John Altson’s Does Harry Dream of Electric Sheep? An Adult Social Satire really can lighten any subject. At its core, Altson’s book is a fun riff on Jonathan…

  • Novel Review–Black River

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    Ben East
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    Beneath the surface of Black River, the taut debut by S.M. Hulse, flows the grey enigma of ultimate justice. The narrative forces the reader to ask: Does a recidivist criminal capable of torture, yet claiming to have found Jesus, deserve parole? Or would such redemption be an injustice to the man he brutalized decades earlier? By…