THRILLERS INVOLVING ANCIENT BOOKS AND ARTIFACTS is the subject of an interesting post over at Hagahot. I've read and enjoyed Foucault's Pendulum and The Rule of Four. I also like H. P. Lovecraft and his wonderful, arcane, and usually evil ancient books such as the Necronomicon. Many years ago I got bogged down in the middle of The Name of the Rose and have never gotten around to finishing it. So far none of the other recent books in this genre (and our local Ottakars has a special shelf devoted to them) have seemed worth the time.

Attempts at this sort of thing in film are often especially dire. That said, Manuscript Boy mentions a Johnny Depp movie that I haven't seen which he seems to think was okay. And some movies in this genre are so much fun that I can't help forgiving -- or at least trying not to think about -- their pathetic attempts to deal with history. I'm thinking, for example, of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and The Mummy.

I got to thinking about the subject this morning, when I noticed a review of a new movie called The Cave, whose title reminded me of The Cave of Treasures.

"The Cave" (PG-13) A team of scientists, who look more like panelists at a underwear-model convention, explore a cave that is purported to hold ancient secrets but actually holds a hottie-eating creature. These spelunkheads stick around long enough to be picked off, one by one. It's not original, but it delivers a few jolty thrills and a couple of laughs and wraps things up before it starts to get too dumb. îî1/2

But aside from the cave with ancient secrets, the two don't seem to have much in common.

By the way, sort of on the same note, I'm continuing to compile a list of lost Old Testament pseudepigrapha and I've found a number of others since my lost books post. When I get a chance I'll post the additions to the list here.

As you may have guessed, it's a slow news day.