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I'm a bit of a Heinlein fan, but for whatever reason only his most accessible stuff - Starship Troopers and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I'd never quite tackled this one. It was always kind of a bit intimidating for some reason. Without a doubt, this book has one of the most evocative titles of all time. It is quite literally biblical in nature. When you start there, you are setting the bar high. And this book delivers in spades.

Stranger in a Strange Land is the story of a man, Valentine Michael Smith, raised by Martians and then returned to Earth. He is roughly 30 years of age but doesn't know what it means to be human. Through Smith, we explore all sorts of social norms - relationships, conflict, friendship, religion, crime, politics, and more. The results are sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, but always intriguing.

I don't want to give away more other than to say the story's ending was both a little predictable and very satisfying. About 100 pages out I knew exactly where we were going, but I didn't care. I wanted to go there with Smith.

Five stars out of five. A great read and a classic of science fiction.

Side note: I've been a convert to digital books for about 5-6 years ever since I had to move. (Boxes of books are heavy!) At the urging of a close friend and the need to fill some empty bookshelves, I decided to pick up a nice hardcover version of this book. And, over the course of a trip, I read an actual physical book. What a pleasure! It is a very different experience than an ebook. I won't be giving up the ebooks anytime soon, but I'll definitely be reading more physical books again!