Oracle Night by Paul Auster is back in my hands. The last time I held it, I read it forward and backwards, literally. It was on the shelf at the library this morning and I did not hesitate. Before I began writing fiction this afternoon, I read a paragraph, and I was hooked again--hooked and excited beyond measure.

Sometime last week I spent an evening reading The Da Vinci Code. I'd ordered it from the library at Christmas and it took all this time to get a hold of a copy. I'm delighted I didn't buy it because 38 pages into the novel I knew it wasn't for me. Priests, bishops, the Opus Dei, symbologists, goddesses of fertility--I could see the book was headed into subjects that are, for better or worse, of no interest to me. Religious themes are the kiss of death, from my point of view.

I was intrigued, though, that more than a year after The Da Vinci Code was published, this article appeared in The New York Times this week. Some Christian leaders are upset that The Da Vinci Code is causing some people to question the divinity of Jesus (think of it!). What surprises me is that this is bothering church leaders now, so long after the book has been published. Did they just wake up or what?