Beam Me Up Jesus: A Heathen's Guide to The Rapture by Jim Gerard

Published by Nation Books an imprint of Avalon Publishing Group.

Distributed by Publishers Group Canada

Jim Gerard - author of Yankees Suck, and Celebrity Skin - brings us a light-hearted and often laugh-out-loud funny look at the end of the world in his book Beam Me Up Jesus: A Heathen's guide to the rapture. It's written with a fearless and straight talking attitude which will leave you in tears with laughter. The introduction itself is comical and in the twenty chapters he delves into this subject with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek as the chapter titles show:

• The Rapture - A Brief Introduction
• The Book of Revelation - Reader's Digest Version
• Whose Rapture is it, Anyway?
• The Rapture in Pop Culture
• Signs That the Rapture is Near, or It's Not Global Warming, Stupid
• Televangelists and Other Public Figures Who Believe They Will Be Raptured, but Who Most Definitely Won't Be
• Why Jesus is Upset That the Christian Right Has Exploited Him for Their Own Purposes and Tarnished His Reputation, but Can't Do Anything about it
• Antichrists, False Christs, and False Starts
• How to Get Raptured, the Multicultural Rapture, What to Pack for the Rapture, and How to Make Sure You Get Left Behind
• The Rapture - God's Greatest Product Launch
• Rapture Spin Control
• The Tribulation - God and Satan's Lollapalooza
• The Post-Rapture Survival Guide (Including How to Protect Yourself against Plagues, Dragons, the Mark of the Beast, the Whore of Babylon, and Satanic Spam
• The Mark of the Beast
• Post-Rapture Culture
• Sex and Relationships
• Left Behind - What to Do After God Breaks Up with You
• Left Behind and Begrudging It (PTRSD - Posttraumatic Rapture Stress Disorder and Other Tribulations
• The Post-Trib: What Happens After the End of the World?
• God: The Last Word

This book is hilarious. It's a well balanced mix of information, sarcasm, digs and humour. I just adored the little lists that were included such as Miracles that were Falsely Attributed to Jesus, which includes the miracles of changing water into bud lite, and also not healing a leper, but offering to sign him up with an HMO. Another favourite of mine is the list of Christian Right Saturday Morning Cartoons which includes titles such as Casper the Holy Ghost, and Beavis and Butt-Head, Born Again.

It's a book that I believe people from all walks of life can giggle at, as long as they have an adequate sense of humour. If you think your faith may prevent you from enjoying this title, check Amazon.com. I was thrilled to see that in the reviews at Amazon.com there were Christian reviewers who had also given this book the thumbs up!

A fun read.

As an added note: I will be posting a review in the future of another title by this author: Who Moved My Secret? which is a parody of The Secret. I plan to read The Secret first so I can truly appreciate the parody.

Author's website: http://www.gangof60.com/

Author's blog: http://www.gangof60.blogspot.com/