The good book

gramlab

No its not about the bible.

Got 2 weeks holidays coming up and looking for a bit of reading material. Have to admit that as an athiest/agnostic, I haven't done much reading up on the subjects. Any recommendations, order to read them in etc.?

Even a recommendation about one from the other side if its worth a read/laugh:D

Red Hand

The Science of Discworld 1, 2 and 3. Pretty light but funny.:)

Forgot to say who wrote them-Terry Pratchett, Jack Cohen and...erm...some guy.:0

Dades

Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy. Brilliant Fantasy with a spicy anti-church theme.

Yes, I figure you were looking for non-fiction but I always have to recommend it!

Otherwise Cosmos by Carl Sagan if you haven't read it.

robindch

1. The Player of Games by Iain M Banks (review here). Religiously-controlled societies play a big part in this book
2. Small Gods by Terry Pratchett.
3. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller.
4. God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens.

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Malari

I'm a regular reader of this forum and have got a lot of good advice here so just trying to return the deed so this is my first post!

I'm reading Doubt: A History by Jennifer Hecht, which is a tome of about 500 pages but really well written and easy to read. Goes through all the agnostics through history basically!

Dan Dennett's Breaking the Spell is a good read too - not as vehement as Dawkin's case against religion!

gramlab

Have tried the discworld series and just couldn't get into it.

Cosmos was always one I meant to read and A Canticle for Leibowitz sounds like its worth a shot. Good prices on Amazon for both. Should keep me going for the first week of the hols anyway.

Will save this thread and try to work through the rest.

Thanks folks.

Obni

Neal Stephenson's - The Baroque Cycle which is bizarrely found in the Science Fiction / Fantasy section of bookshops.

All 19 of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series of novels.

CerebralCortex

Your holiday mustn't be that exciting if you need reading material.

Pompey Magnus

"Lost Christianities" by Bart Ehrman is a good read if you want to find out about how Christianity developed and how arbitrarily the Christian faith developed. "Misquoting Jesus" by Ehrman is supposed to be good also, focusing on the Christians who changed the Gospels to benefit their own views on Christianity. I haven't got around to reading it yet but I listened to a lecture Ehrman gave on it and it sounds very interesting.

Tim_Murphy

The Science of Discworld book are quite good, well worth a read. The discworld chapters are a good break from the science but if you're not too bothered you can just skip them and read the science chapters without really missing too much.

Michael Shermer's "Why people believe weird things' is another good book.

Dan Dennett's Breaking the Spell is a good read too

I found it a difficult enough book to get into TBH. Damn my short attention span. :rolleyes:

Malari

Tim_Murphy wrote: »

I found it a difficult enough book to get into TBH. Damn my short attention span. :rolleyes:

Well I've got really interested in reading up on this stuff lately (TRYING to leave the catholic church!) so maybe that's why I got into it easily enough. I admit it's not exactly simple reading!

gramlab

CerebralCortex wrote: »

Your holiday mustn't be that exciting if you need reading material.

My little girl is finally old enough for the kids clubs and a few weeks after I come back number 2 is due.

Relaxing and reading will seem like distant treat in a few months:(