Journey to Virginland-Epistle 1 written by Armen Melikan is not a book to be read by those who are into light reading! It is very witty, cleverly written with many phrases and words that need to be delved into deeper or researched. The story itself is extremely interesting and really get's your mind going and thinking of thoughts or ideas you might possibly had never done so otherwise.

Synopsis: "The protagonist, a loutish and uber-cerebral antihero known simply as Dog, takes on the challenge to navigate the perilous paradigm shifts of our age, determined to find his proper place under the sun. Is he doomed to failure? Or will he pull it off by heeding his own irreducible voice, given the ebb of the old certainties?

Dog pursues the answer unrelentingly, through an impassioned quest for identity and meaning. He revisits his relationships with women, family, literature, and homeland, in the process illuminating his journey with commentaries on history, religion, politics, and culture that unravel our very fabric.

Marked by biting satire and tappings into lushest scholarship, Dog’s naked critique touches on some of the most pressing issues facing humanity: the arrogance of empire and organized religion; the persistence of bigotry, xenophobia, and social Darwinism; the double standards of sexual politics; the bankrupt rationale behind patriotism and state propaganda; and hypercapitalism and consumerism, among others.

An ocean of struggles and epiphanies takes Dog to a spiritual ground zero called Virginland, where the story unfolds. It is also in Virginland that Dog unearths an ancient calendar based on a cosmic worldview. His discovery reveals the mythological underpinnings of the Zodiac, subverting the current conventional wisdom about the subject.

What emerges from the protagonist’s odyssey is not only a cogent depiction of what makes us tick, but, as day follows night, a dazzling new vista for social and spiritual transformation."

Like I said, this was a very difficult read for me. I had an extremely hard time getting into the story since I was too busy going back and forth researching and looking up what the philosophical or historical references meant! However, the parts that I was able to grasp really had me intrigued and do make you think about your own life and how you feel about it or in what direction  you are headed. I am not at all a religious person, however, I like many others wonder about our existance and going through the journey that Dog went through in this story made me question what my future will be like.

About the author: Armen Melikianholds a Master's in International Relations from American University, Washington, D.C. He has also studied mathematics at Harvard and elsewhere, and was admitted by the Mathematical Institute of Oxford University to pursue graduate studies in Analytic Geometry, Mathematical Physics, and Topology. However, he eventually abandoned both politics and mathematics in favor of literature and dedicated his life to writing. Melikian lives in Los Angeles.

You can purchase your own copy of Journey to Virginland on AMAZON for $17.96 or the KINDLE version for $4.99. To find out more about the author, visit his website at http://www.journeytovirginland.com/index.htm or follow him on FACEBOOK or TWITTER.

**I received a copy of this book for my review. However these are my views and opinions.