16 July 2012

Listing of book review posts

In the future my book reviews will be a bigger part of this blog, so I'm starting this post to list them all.  It will be updated as necessary.

The Bible Unearthed (2001) by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman:  It's not just Genesis -- almost all the "history" in the Old Testament is a fiction created in the 7th century BC, and never happened in reality.

The Camp of the Saints (1973) by Jean Raspail:   The godawful, turgid novel that spawned enduring nightmares about race and migration.

Crazy for God (2007) by Frank Schaeffer:  The son of theologian Francis Schaeffer, one of the founders of the modern Christian Right, describes how he repudiated his father's ideology and now fights against it as a liberal Christian.

The Darkening Age (2017) by Catherine Nixey:  Yes, it really was Christianity that destroyed Greco-Roman civilization and precipitated the Dark Ages.  It's an ugly and bloody story.

Ending Aging (2007) by Aubrey de Grey:  With effort and investment, we can develop a comprehensive strategy to defeat humanity's oldest and most terrible enemy -- death itself.

Enlightenment Now (2018) by Steven Pinker:  Why life today is better than ever before, and how to keep it getting even better.

Factfulness (2018) by Hans Rosling:  Too many people's impressions of the world, especially the "developing countries", are half a century out of date.  The world today is very different from in the 1960s and 1970s.

Forgotten Fatherland (1992) by Ben Macintyre:  The true story of a German racist colony in 19th-century Paraguay, founded by Nietzsche's sister.

The Grand Design (2010) by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow:  Why does the universe exist?  Why is there something rather than nothing?  We now know the answers.

Here Be Dragons (2009) by Dennis McCarthy:  Geography has shaped evolution, including bringing several catastrophic mass-extinction events long before the time of humans.

Household Gods (1999) by Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove:  A modern woman travels back in time and spends over a year living in a border town in the Roman Empire.

Infidel (2007) by Ayaan Hirsi Ali:  A former Muslim tells the story of her upbringing in Somalia and Kenya, her growing doubts about Islam and final escape from it, and her courageous struggle against its influence in the Western world.

The Language Hoax (2014) by John McWhorter:  There are huge differences between languages around the world, but they don't cause people to have different ways of perceiving reality.

The Necroscope series by Brian Lumley:  Novels that take vampires back to their true evil roots, with more than a few zombies thrown in.

A Renegade History of the United States (2010) by Thaddeus Russell:  The counter-culture has been an integral part of American life from the time of the Founders down to today.

Things I Never Learned in Sunday School (2012) by Nan Yielding:  Many of the beliefs of modern Christianity have remarkably little basis in the Bible, originating instead from mistranslations, non-Biblical texts, and other ancient religions.

V for Vendetta (1988) by Alan Moore and David Lloyd:  The classic graphic novel of a lone anarchist revolutionary battling a fascist regime in Britain, with an emphasis on comparing it with the film adaptation.

Why I Am Not a Muslim (1995) by Ibn Warraq:  A former Muslim exposes Islam's barbaric nature and fraudulent origins -- and offers evidence that its grip on the minds of its hundreds of millions of adherents may be much more fragile than we think.

A few lesser-known science fiction novels well worth reading.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Carol A. Seidl said...

Nice list. I've heard of several that you've noted but have only read Infidel by Hirsi Ali. I agree that it is exceptional. A book I dearly love and that I think you'd enjoy is Enlightening the World, Encyclopédie, The Book That Changed the Course of History, by German author, Philipp Blom. I leave it to Wikipedia and Goodreads to summarize but I'll just add that anyone that appreciates scientific rigor and enjoys a lively battle with the Catholic Church will admire Blom's retelling of Diderot's passionate effort to compile the first encyclopedia. Happy to have found your blog.

17 November, 2020 19:18  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Thanks for commenting and welcome aboard! I'll check out Blom.

18 November, 2020 02:12  

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