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Our selection of books and associated reviews. Each cover is an affiliate link to Amazon for purchase.
The Lessons of History
This historical essay updates, corrects and further explains the Durants’ previous Story of Civilization series, offering insights into some of its major themes, events and characters. Originally written in 1968, this book predicts that “a generation of peace” would lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1969, President Richard Nixon began a peace […]
The Metaphysics of Death
The Metaphysics of Death is a collection of essays by contemporary philosophers which assumes that death is the permanent end of an individual’s conscious existence. Given that death is the end, what is it that makes death bad for the person who has died (since the deceased cannot experience death)? When does the harm of […]
The Myth of the Resurrection
Did Jesus ever live? Was he the Messiah as Christianity has claimed? And what are the true foundations of the Christian religion? These are the fundamental questions posed by ex-priest Joseph McCabe (1867 – 1955), a prodigious scholar, translator, and lecturer, who tirelessly promoted scientific inquiry, skepticism, and anticlericalism in works that were exhaustively researched […]
The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament
The victors not only write the history, they also reproduce the texts. In a study that explores the close relationship between the social history of early Christianity and the textual tradition of the emerging New Testament, Ehrman examines how early struggles between Christian “heresy” and “orthodoxy” affected the transmission of the documents over which, in […]
The Psychic Mafia
The Psychic Mafia details the techniques used by mediums to convince their clients that they are in touch with the dead. This is a classic expose by a former medium who stopped performing seances when his conscience overcame him.
The Satanic Verses
Just before dawn one winter morning, a hijacked jetliner explodes above the English Channel. Through the falling debris, two men — Gibreel Farishta, the biggest movie star in India, and Saladin Chamcha, an expatriate returning from his first visit to Bombay in fifteen years — plummet from the sky. Washing up on the snow-covered sands […]
The Stranger
The Stranger was Camus’ first novel and thrust him onto the scene as one of France’s leading men of letters. Camus was influenced by Hemingway’s abrupt literary style to present a protagonist who acts purely in the present tense without concern for societal pressures of what one ought to do. In The Stranger, Camus explores […]
The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God
Book Description Carl Sagan’s prophetic vision of the tragic resurgence of fundamentalism and the hope-filled potential of the next great development in human spirituality. Carl Sagan is considered one of the greatest scientific minds of our time. His remarkable ability to explain science in terms easily understandable to the layman in bestselling books such as […]
Timeless Reality : Symmetry, Simplicity, and Multiple Universes
In his exciting new book, physicist Victor J. Stenger shows how timesymmetry at the quantum level makes it possible to draw a model of underlyingreality that is simpler and more symmetric than the conventional view.This reality is timeless, with no beginning, no end, and no arrow of time.Time is indeed reversible. And in this “timeless […]
Veiled Courage: Inside the Afghan Women’s Resistance
In Afghanistan under Taliban rule, women were forbidden to work or go to school, they could not leave their homes without a male chaperone, and they could not be seen without a head-to-toe covering called the burqua. A woman’s slightest infractions were met with brutal public beatings. That is why it is both appropriate and […]
When Bad Christians Happen to Good People
Subtitled: Where We Have Failed Each Other and How to Reverse the Damage A believing Christian documents, sometimes with biting humor, the damage to people and society done by “bad” Christians, emphasizing contemporary hypocrisy, including that of institutions and churches. He presents copious evidence, and argues from Biblical precedent that Christians ought to exhibit humility, […]
Why I Am Not a Christian
Dedicated as few men have been to the life of reason, Bertrand Russell has always been concerned with the basic questions to which religion also addresses itself — questions about man’s place in the universe and the nature of the good life, questions that involve life after death, morality, freedom, education, and sexual ethics. He […]
Women Without Superstition
An outstanding collection of the writings of women freethinkers of the nineteenth & twentieth centuries, including Susan B. Anthony, Annie Besant, George Eliot, Catherine Fahringer, Anne Nicol Gaylor, Ruth Hermence Green, Taslima Nasrin, Katha Pollitt, Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Barbara G. Walker, and much, much more!
2010 : Odyssey Two
When 2001: A Space Odyssey first shocked, amazed, and delighted millions in the late 1960s, the novel was quickly recognized as a classic. Since then, its fame has grown steadily among the multitudes who have read the novel or seen the film based on it. Yet, along with almost universal acclaim, a host of questions […]
A History of Western Philosophy
Since its first publication in 1945, Lord Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy has been universally acclaimed as the outstanding one-volume work on the subject — unparalleled in its comprehensiveness, its clarity, its erudition, its grace and wit. In seventy-six chapters he traces philosophy from the rise of Greek civilization to the emergence of logical […]
Agnosticism and Christianity
In this selection of his most important writings, renowned scientist and philosopher Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1859) discusses his views on the demonstrative evidence of evolution, the physical basis of life, naturalism and supernaturalism, agnosticism and Christianity, and the Christian tradition in relation to Judaic Christianity.
Arthur C. Clarke & Lord Dunsany : A Correspondence
This book collects the hitherto unpublished correspondence between science fiction legend Sir Arthur C. Clarke and fantasy master Lord Dunsany. Their correspondence, which lasted 12 years (1944-1956), reveals much about the world views of both authors.
Atheist Universe: The Thinking Person’s Answer to Christian Fundamentalism
New Expanded Edition The world’s best-selling book on atheism just got better. Building upon two years of voluminous reader feedback, David Mills has just revised and expanded Atheist Universe to include all the latest arguments and debate, including detailed rebuttals to the newest Christian books on “Intelligent Design.” The New Edition (published August 28, 2006, […]
Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and Macabre
This is the collection that true fans of horror fiction have been waiting for: sixteen of H.P. Lovecraft’s most horrifying visions, including Lovecraft’s masterpiece, The Shadow Out of Time — the shocking revelation of the mysterious forces that hold all mankind in their fearsome grip. “I think it is beyond doubt that H.P. Lovecraft has […]
Blues for Mister Charlie
From the murder that marks its opening scene to the scathing dialogue that transforms racism in America from an abstraction to a palpable emotion that grips the heart, this award-winning play touches us all with its rare humanity and with its piercing vision of our nation, our times, and ourselves.
Christianity and the Holocaust of Hungarian Jewry
Hierczl, a Hungarian Jew who survived the holocaust, provides a well written and well documented account of Christian anti-Semitism in Hungary from 1880 to 1944. He shows how religious arguments were used to justify harsh anti-Semitic legislation in the years leading up to the war. Hierczl builds his case using extensive quotations of church members […]
Cradle
The creator of 2001: A Space Odyssey teams up with renowned space scientist Gentry Lee to give readers a thrilling space adventure set on the edge of tomorrow. This far-reaching, spine-tingling adventure stretches from the dawn of time to the distant future, from the edges of the universe to the vast depths of the sea. […]
Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life
In 1991 Dennett wrote Consciousness Explained, and it so burned up the religious minded they tagged it Consciousness Explained Away. Here, Dennett presses forward the implications of natural selection (the “dangerous idea” ) in a presentation most readers will find rather technical, but for those who persevere, understanding of its mechanisms, particularly the algorithms by […]
Dictionary of Science & Creationism
Ever wanted to look up a topic related to the creationism vs. evolution controversy, but never knew where to go? Ronald Ecker’s Dictionary of Science & Creationism makes it easy to find the answers you want… fast!
E = mc2
Subtitled: A Biography of the World’s Most Famous Equation E=mc2. Just about everyone has at least heard of Albert Einstein’s formulation of 1905, which came into the world as something of an afterthought. But far fewer can explain his insightful linkage of energy to mass. David Bodanis offers an easily grasped gloss on the equation. […]
Evolving: The Human Effect and Why It Matters
Description “Understanding evolution is the key to determining our planet’s future.” In this persuasive, elegantly written book, research geneticist Daniel J. Fairbanks argues that understanding evolution has never mattered more in human history. Fairbanks not only uses evidence from archaeology, geography, anatomy, biochemistry, radiometric dating, cell biology, chromosomes, and DNA to establish the inescapable conclusion […]
Feersum Endjinn
In a world where one can live multiple lives, Count Alandre Sessine VIII has survived seven times and is down to his last, leaving him one final shot at finding his killer. His only clues point to a conspiracy that reaches far beyond his own murder, and survival lies in discovering other fugitives who know […]
From Genesis to Genetics: The Case of Evolution and Creationism
The clash between evolution and creationism is one of the most hotly contested topics in education today. This book, written by one of America’s most distinguished science educators, provides essential background information on this difficult and important controversy. Giving a sweeping and balanced historical look at both schools of thought, John A. Moore shows that […]
God, the Devil, and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory
In the last fifteen years a controversial new theory of the origins of biological complexity and the nature of the universe has been fomenting bitter debates in education and science policy across North America, Europe, and Australia. Backed by intellectuals at respectable universities, Intelligent Design theory (ID) proposes an alternative to accepted accounts of evolutionary […]
Hereafter: Searching for Immortality
Book Description As long as people have been on earth, they have constructed various explanations of what happens after death. Hereafter combines an overview of the history of these theories and a survey of the current attitudes toward immortality. Other than physical form and genetic structure, we hold little in common with our earliest ancestors […]