Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

If you have any room left in your summer reading schedule, may I humbly but strongly recommend (as it was recommended to me) Christopher Moore's Lamb. It dares to imagine what it would have been like for the Son of God to have had friends before he had apostles, and challenges the presumption that Jesus's theology and social philosophy just popped into being fully formed on His 30th birthday. Biff is Han Solo to Jesus's Luke Skywalker, the Ron to his Harry; and it's through His relationships that Jesus not only grows into a man, but allows Himself to become truly human as well. The story is both delightfully reverent, and enormously funny in the way that only sincerely reverent religious fiction can be (A Prayer for Owen Meany is the best analogy I can come up with, in case you have no idea what I'm talking about).

I don't read a lot of fiction, but I'm very grateful for the recommendations I got to pick this one up. Dig it the most. Here's a sample:

"You see, Jesus, faking demonic possession is kind of like a mustard seed."
"How is it like a mustard seed?"
"You really don't know, do you? Doesn't seem like a mustard seed at all, does it? There, now you know how the rest of us feel when you liken everything to a mustard seed. Now go with God."