Book Recommendation

[ChildOfReason]

I'm a relatively new atheist (12 months atheist, first two months agnostic). Any recommendations for a good book to read?

[c172]

I thought Letter to a Christian Nation was good. It was an easy read, but matter of fact.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I recommend 'The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever' by Hitchens. A good primer on atheism, it'll also point you towards loads of other books and authors.

Boru

[Minimalist]

Jesus Never Existed by Ken Humphreys

[Esquilax]

Good Omens. You never said it had to be a book about atheism.

On topic, I did enjoy God is Not Great, also by Hitch. I wouldn't bother with the God Delusion, which some might recommend- I read it a while ago, and can remember literally nothing about it, so it must have had some really impactful lessons.

[Kayenneh]

For some really good fiction, read Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' series.

[TheBeardedDude]

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins was my first book after outing myself as an atheist.

I haven't read a ton of atheist literature since then, but God is not Great and The Missionary Position (both by Hitchens) are also great for solidly slamming a nail in religion for me.

I preferred to listen to podcasts while I worked in the lab for a while. I like the Non-Prophets and the Atheist Experience (both put on by the Atheist Community of Austin). The non-Prophets is my favorite (they went on a hiatus for a while) because they discuss current events. The Atheist Experience is great, but becomes repetitive since it is a call-in show, the same things come up over and over again on that one, so you can burn yourself out on it (and there was a period over last summer or so when it got really hard to listen to because the hosts were being a bit too dickish, and that can still be a problem). The last one I used to listen to was The Thinking Atheist by Seth Andrews. He does a lot of topical shows that are pretty good, but can kind of get a bit preachy at times. I kind of migrated away from his podcasts when the topics became less and less interesting to me, so I don't really listen to his anymore (but there were some good ones in there for sure).

[Brian37]

1. "The New Atheism", Victor Stenger
2. "The God Delusion" Richard Dawkins
3. "God Is Not Great" Christopher Hitchens
4. "The End Of Faith" Sam Harris
5. "Infidel" Ayaan Hersi Ali
6. "2000 Years of Disbelief" James Haught
7. "Letter To A Christian Nation" Sam Harris
9. "God The Failed Hypothesis" Victor Stinger
10. "Portable Atheist" Christopher Hitchens

[Psykhronic]

Ayaan Hersi Ali's Infidel is a must. Although I rather enjoyed another book, a graphic novel, Persepolis, set in Iran about when extreme Islamists came into power. There's a book that has Bertrand Russell's "Why I am not a Christian" (and other essays), by that title, which is also very interesting. For fiiction - Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" is pretty damn good. I don't read books whose sole focus is Atheism, personally.

[Clueless Morgan]

I quite enjoyed 101 Myths of the Bible by Gary Greenberg; an easy read since it doesn't have to be read in order (from myth #1 to myth #101) so if you only have a couple minutes you can skip around to the really short myths. Plus I've loved Egyptian mythology since I was a kid so it was a tactic I used to make the bible interesting to me as I read it.