The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose

The Unlikely Disciple tells the story of a college student who decides to attend Liberty University (founded by Jerry Falwell) for a semester’s break from Brown and as a reporting opportunity, a la Racing Odysseus but from a 20-something’s eyes. The disingenuous aspect of the stunt (since, unlike the author of Racing Odysseus, the author [...]

The Twighlight of Atheism by Alister McGrath

While I enjoyed The Dawkins Delusion, in which the same author offered a reasoned and, I thought, restrained critic of Christopher Dawkins’s vitriolic The God Delusion, I was greatly disappointed by The Twilight of Atheism, which claims to present a history of atheism from the French revolution through modern times. I’m disappointed that McGrath is [...]

The Dawkins Delusion by Alister McGrath

The Dawkins Delusion is a rebuttal to Richard Dawkins’s  The God Delusion, which I found to be an intolerant and grating vituperation against religious people of all ilk that failed to distinguish between the lunatic fundamentalist fringe and the vast majority of religious folks who, it seems to me, are much more tolerant than Dawkins [...]

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

The 19th Wife tells two stories: one is a historical novel about Ann Eliza Young, the 19th wife (probably more like the 50th++ wife) of the Mormon leader Brigham Young, who decided to leave him and speak against polygamy; the other is about a young gay ex-fundamentalist Mormon trying to get his mother, also a [...]

Waiting for the Apocalypse by Veronica Chater

Waiting for the Apocalypse is the hilarious yet tragic story of the author’s family, whose father, distraught by the Catholic Church reforms of the Vatican II Council, decides to abruptly move his large family (6 children at that point, under 12 years of age!) from the San Francisco Bay Area to… Portugal, where he just [...]

Practicing Catholic by James Carroll

The vagaries of library waiting lists (have I mentioned before that I love our public library?) dictated that I read two books about Catholics back to back. This one,  Practicing Catholic, is a serious reflection of what it means (to the author, that is) to be a Catholic, while the other one, Waiting for [...]

Nothing to be Frightened of by Julian Barnes

Julian Barnes is afraid of death. And aging. And he did not get along with his mother — at all. He has read an impressive array of philosophers and philosophers sans le savoir, and he is able to quote and cross-reference their thoughts effortlessly, or so it seems; I want to believe he had dozens of [...]

The Year of Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs

Written by an editor at Esquire Magazine (Esquire!) The Year of Living Biblically is a hilarious report on how one man tried to live for a year by following all the rules in the bible. He starts by writing them all down (72 pages) and makes a serious effort to understand all of them and [...]