Paradoxes of Peace continues the meditation of Mosley's Time at War, at the end of which he wrote that humans find themselves at home in war because they feel they know what they have to do, whereas in peace they have to discover this.

"The story ends in September 2001.

"God is said to have given humans freedom. Yet in the story of Genesis, God is a punishing father figure. Why have humans portrayed him this way?

"Published with the assistance of the Illinois Arts Council."

For Gray, though, this is only half the story, after which Bella (a.k.a.

Channeling the spirits of Chaucer, Rabelais, Flann O'Brien, and Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, the Vatican secretary who compiled the first known book of jokes in 1451, "The Book of Jokes" is a happy raspberry in the face of life as we ...

Surrounding this meeting is the equally bizarre story of the local townspeople, who are brainwashed and transformed into servants for the convention, and who end the book with a show-stopping Shakespearian play.

In print, the range has been as wide: editor of a controversial religious magazine, author of the acclaimed novel series Catastrophe Practice, screenwriter of his own work with Joe Losey and John Frankenheimer, biographer of his notorious ...

When an unknown black poodle inexplicably explodes in philosophy professor Timothy Chesterton-Brown's back yard--paralyzing the professor and killing his guest--the "mystery of the sardine" begins.

"War is both senseless and necessary, squalid and fulfilling, terrifying and sometimes jolly," he writes. "This is like life. Humans are at home in war (though they seldom admit this). They feel they know what they have to do.