Book excerpt: In life there are a few major questions. Among them are, "What do we gain?" "What's new?" and "What's the point?" This book creatively uses the Book of Ecclesiastes--where these questions often pop up--to investigate how we question, what we question, and why we question. Along the way you will encounter some of history's great questioners: Socrates, Soren Kierkegaard, Virginia Woolf, Friedrich Nietzsche, G. K. Chesterton, and others, though they may appear in unexpected ways. Something Beyond Nothing? is an experiment in finding and making meaning that focuses on the unpredictable journey of living with questions. Taking the awkwardness of Ecclesiastes as a cue, Brian Niece's odd book is a mix of storytelling, theological analysis, poetic meditation, philosophical investigation, drama, and biblical interpretation. Herein is nonfiction and fiction--with no clear line between the two--suggesting that our modes of meaning may be as significant as the meaning they lead us to. What's more, if there is something beyond nothing, it may not be quite like what we think we know. And the God we don't yet know may surprise us.