Susan Jacoby's Top Book Recommendations

Susan JacobyThe Confessions is a book that everybody should read. It is seminal, if you can excuse the expression. (Source)

Carlos EireSt Augustine of Hippo was one of the first thinkers to struggle with the concepts of time, memory and eternity. (Source)

Richard HarriesHe was a wonderful, wonderful writer and a deeply passionate man. He was very sensual. (Source)

Neil deGrasse TysonWhich books should be read by every single intelligent person on planet? [...] The Age of Reason (Paine) [to learn how the power of rational thought is the primary source of freedom in the world]. If you read all of the above works you will glean profound insight into most of what has driven the history of the western world. (Source)

Susan JacobySimply put, this book excoriates the idea that any religious book was written by God. They were all written by man, and while many of them have excellent principles, they are principles that any man can discern through his own reason. You don’t have to have all these supernatural events. He specifically mentions the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible and the Koran – the big three. These sacred... (Source)

Phil LibinJust got Hitchens' latest book "Mortality" from Amazon. Opened the box and it finally sank in: I'm never gonna get this signed. (Source)

Susan JacobyOh for God’s sake! For everybody who was a prominent atheist – Voltaire, Paine, Ingersoll – these rumours always circulate, that they converted on their deathbed. The reason I recommend Mortality to everyone is that one of the things that’s always asked about atheists – and I think it’s a fair question – is how you can survive the terrible things that life hands out, if you don’t believe in a... (Source)

Susan JacobyRichard Dawkins is very funny. One of the reasons for reading The God Delusion is that it will disabuse you of the idea – which is a common stereotype of atheists – that they are utterly humourless. You hear this over and over again. I’m often invited to college campuses to give lectures, and often they’re religious schools – not fundamentalist schools, but colleges of a historically religious... (Source)

Vote Dem For The Planet@KimBledsoe14 @Goodbye_Jesus @Ian313f There were a lot of rebels and drifters in those days against the repressive regime. They had followers. Have you read “The God Delusion”? Great book. (Source)

Antonio EramThis book was recommended by Antonio when asked for titles he would recommend to young people interested in his career path. (Source)

Steven PinkerWhen it came out 10 years ago I said it was the best book either of us had ever written. Authors are always proudest of their latest, but this remains a masterpiece: Thirty-Six Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction by Rebecca Goldstein https://t.co/YAcLw7TUE3 (Source)

Susan JacobyThis is a novel. It’s about a professor who has written a book about atheism, and how religion and atheism play out in everyday life. It shows the thought processes of atheism and religion, what they do and don’t have in common. One of the thing that’s interesting about it is that the author, Rebecca Goldstein, was raised in a highly orthodox, Jewish Hasidic household and this background makes... (Source)