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The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
By Christopher Hitchens

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Product Description

From the #1 New York Times best-selling author of God Is Not Great, a provocative and entertaining guided tour of atheist and agnostic thought through the ages--with never-before-published pieces by Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.Christopher Hitchens continues to make the case for a splendidly godless universe in this first-ever gathering of the influential voices--past and present--that have shaped his side of the current (and raging) God/no-god debate. With Hitchens as your erudite and witty guide, you’ll be led through a wealth of philosophy, literature, and scientific inquiry, including generous portions of the words of Lucretius, Benedict de Spinoza, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Mark Twain, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, H. L. Mencken, Albert Einstein, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and many others well-known and lesser known. And they’re all set in context and commented upon as only Christopher Hitchens--“political and literary journalist extraordinaire” (Los Angeles Times)--can. Atheist? Believer? Uncertain? No matter: The Portable Atheist will speak to you and engage you every step of the way.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #578 in Books
  • Published on: 2007-11-05
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 528 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Hitchens, an avowed atheist and author of the bestseller God Is Not Great, is a formidable intellectual who finds the notion of belief in God to be utter nonsense. The author is clear in his introduction that religion has caused more than its fair share of world problems. "Religion invents a problem where none exists by describing the wicked as also made in the image of god and the sexually nonconformist as existing in a state of incurable mortal sin that can incidentally cause floods and earthquakes." The readings Hitchens chooses to bolster his atheist argument are indeed engaging and important. Hobbes, Spinoza, Mill and Marx are some of the heavyweights representing a philosophical viewpoint. From the world of literature the author assembles excerpts from Shelley, Twain, Conrad, Orwell and Updike. All are enjoyable to read and will make even religious believers envious of the talent gathered for this anthology. What these dynamic writers are railing against often enough, however, is a strawman: an immature, fundamentalist, outdated, and even embarrassing style of religion that many intelligent believers have long since cast off. It could be that Hitchens and his cast of nonbelievers are preaching to the choir and their message is tired and spent. However, this remains a fascinating collection of readings from some of the West's greatest thinkers.

About the Author
Christopher Hitchens is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. His numerous books include Letters to a Young Contrarian and Why Orwell Matters.

Customer Reviews

A fascinating collection of essays5
This is a fantastic collection. For anyone just discovering their atheism I highly recommend this book - it brings together writings by atheists or agnostics over the last 2000 or so years, making some incredibly compelling arguments. I'm only halfway through at the moment, but I especially love Mark Twain's discussion of the fly.

Not so portable.3
While this book has a wealth of different voices from influential people on the subject, at 500 pages, it is not so portable. I was expecting something more pocket sized.

Nice collection, but very "anti-"4
I thought it was pretty amazing to read that even as far back as 55 B.C., people had these thoughts: Lucretius. He even argued that the world can be accounted for in terms of atoms that are in perpetual motion. 55 B.C., that's pretty cool. Jumping forward in time, the piece by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1811) is way more explicit than I expected. He was expelled from Oxford and Cambridge universities, but his text survived. Dawkins, Dennett and Weinberg were inspiring. After reading a bunch though, I got a little bit depressed, because they were mostly about the bad aspects of religion, less about the good aspects of atheism. I want to see the sun. I see the sun, it's right there. Look, look! Maybe an idea for the next edition.