Takeaway: If you don’t know what good satire is all about, you have not read anything by Christopher Buckley.
Purchase Links: Hardcover, Paperback, Audible.com Audiobook
I hate abridged audiobooks. You never know what you really are missing, you just know something is missing. Is it a good part, a lousy part. Is it five minutes or three-quarters of the book?
But I also love Christopher Buckley. And I am running out of his books. I reserve them for reading emergencies, but that comes along about every 3 to 4 months. I am not sure what I will do when I run out. I have listened to all of the unabridged Christopher Buckley books. Now I am going to have to work through the abridged. I picked God is My Broker, both because it looked hilarious, and because it looks like it is out of print, so it is unlikely to ever get an unabridged audiobook. And it is not available on kindle.
The set up is that Brother Ty is a monk. He was an alcoholic Wall Street trader, but he got fired and ended up in a monastery. Now sober for a couple years, his monastery is facing financial problems when God starts giving him stock tips. His abbot is convinced it is the power of positive thinking from Deepak Chopra that is providing the money. But Brother Ty knows it is actually God.
As with all of Buckley’s humor, nothing is safe. This book targets self help books, Wall Street, the Catholic Church and a host of other likely targets.
In the end, what I like about Buckley, is that he know that ideas are nothing without a story. Buckley knows how to write a story with people that you care about, even those that are not the heroes.
If you care, this is one of the cleaner stories by Buckley, no sex, barely any language. A rated PG book.
