Archive for the ‘books’ Category

Podcast #99 – Mary Roach (Packing for Mars)

Saturday, August 28th, 2010

We interview Mary Roach, author of the bestselling science-humor book Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void.  She’s also the author of Stiff (about human cadavers), Spook (the scientific inquest on life after death), and Bonk (the science of human sexuality).    Packing for Mars is both educational and laugh-out-loud funny.  It’s available in hardcover, audiobook, and for Kindle.

If you can’t get enough of Mary Roach (and let’s face it, who can?), John interviewed her back in 2005 at SciFiDimensions.com, and reviewed both Stiff and Spook.

(more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

It looks like a film version of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged will finally be a reality! At least the first 147 of 1000+ pages…

Fifty-some-odd years after its publication, Atlas Shrugged is still selling briskly, and is still controversial. Rumors of a film version–including one starring Angelina Jolie as Dagny Taggart and Brad Pitt as John Galt–have so far come to nothing.

But now, it looks like Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 will be released sometime next year, made possible by a cast and crew of relative unknowns. Check out this behind-the-scenes short from Reason.tv:

  • Share/Bookmark

Books maybe you should know about, Pt. 2

Saturday, August 21st, 2010

Back in April, I posted “Books maybe you should know about,” a list of upcoming freethought books I thought fellow freethinkers might like to read.  We were about to cover about half the books on that list.   And now, the march of progress continues!  Here are four more books coming out between now and the end of the year, and I’ll try my damnedest to cover them all:

C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy by Jeff Sharlet (pub. by Little, Brown & Co., Sept 2010) – Sharlet continues the work he started in his stunning expose on The Family.  Read my review of The Family, or listen to our podcast interview with Jeff Sharlet.

The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Moral Values by Sam Harris (pub. by Free Press, Oct 2010) – How often have you heard it said that science can tell us how things are, but not how they ought to be?  Sam Harris (The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation) may have bitten off more than he can chew with this one.  I’m also considering blogging my chapter-by-chapter reactions to this book, similar to what I did when reading Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth.

Hating God: The Untold Story of Misotheism by Bernard Schweizer (pub. by Oxford Univ. Press, Nov 2010) – Speaking of oft-heard questions, how many times have you been asked, once your atheism is revealed, “Why do you hate God?”  The answer, of course, is that atheists don’t hate God–they don’t think he even exists!  But it makes a certain twisted sense that some percentage of those who actually believe in God don’t see Him as the Loving, Merciful Creator.  (I’d never heard the term “misotheist” before, so I’m really looking forward to reading this one.)

The Good Atheist: Living a Purpose-Filled Life without God by Dan Barker (pub. by Ulysses Press, Dec 2010) – Something tells me the former reverend Barker will approach the problem of atheist ethics from a slightly different angle than Sam Harris.  Should be an interesting contrast–and just in time for Christmas!

  • Share/Bookmark

Podcast #97 – The Essential Freethought Library

Friday, July 23rd, 2010


We discuss the Essential Freethought Library, the result of a poll of dozens of notable personalities in the freethought community.  We asked them one simple question: “What ten books must the well-read freethinker have read?”

(more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

The Essential Freethought Library

Monday, July 12th, 2010

We polled several dozen notable freethinkers, atheists and skeptics and asked them to recommend essential books for the well-read freethinker.  Find out what they think you should be reading here.  (Note that this is a new addition to our permanent Pages section, which can be found in the right-hand column.)

  • Share/Bookmark

Podcast #96 – Michael Largo (God’s Lunatics)

Monday, July 12th, 2010

We talk with Michael Largo, author of the entertaining, enlightening, encyclopedic tome God’s Lunatics: Lost Souls, False Prophets, Martyred Saints, Murderous Cults, Demonic Nuns, and Other Victims of Man’s Eternal Search for the Divine.  His previous nonfiction works include Genius and Heroin, The Portable Obituary, and the award-winning Final Exits: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of How We Die.  For more about Michael and his books visit FinalExits.com.

(more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

Podcast #95 – Hitch-22

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

Writer/activist Christopher Hitchens has announced he’ll be stepping out of the public light to undergo chemotherapy to treat esophageal cancer.  This is bad and scary news and we’re hoping for a speedy and relatively painless recovery.

Meanwhile, Hitchens has just published Hitch-22, a controversial memoir in which he reveals hitherto unknown details of his early life, and tries to explain his convoluted journey from hardcore Trotskyite to (for lack of a better term) neocon apologist.  It’s not a dull read, although much of the name-dropping will go over the heads of average American readers who only know Hitch from his recent elevation to the ranks of the Four Horsemen.  (Keep Wikipedia or Google handy and you’ll do just fine.)

Hitch-22 is available in hardcover, as an audiobook (read by Hitch himself) and in Kindle format.

(more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

Podcast #94 – John W. Loftus (The Christian Delusion)

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

We talk with minister-turned-atheist John W. Loftus, editor of The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails, a collection of essays from contributors including Dan Barker, David Eller, Robert Price and Richard Carrier.  The Christian Delusion is published by Prometheus Books.  You should also check out Loftus’ first book Why I Became an Atheist.

Also mentioned in the podcast: 57th Fighter Group, a WWII-themed restaurant with a view of the runway at Dekalb Peachtree Airport in north metro Atlanta.

(more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

Podcast #92 – The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

We discuss the latest novel from Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass), which re-imagines Jesus Christ as twin brothers named “Jesus” and “Christ.”  The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is published in hardcover by Canongate and in unabridged audio by Brilliance Audio.

Listen to our discussion of the movie adaptation of The Golden Compass from way back in podcast #3.

(more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

Podcast #90 – Massimo Pigliucci (Nonsense on Stilts)

Saturday, June 5th, 2010

We interview Dr. Massimo Pigliucci, evolutionary biologist, philosopher, science crusader, and author of Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk.  This new book explores the frontier between science and pseudoscience, the difficulty of defining exactly what is science (what Karl Popper dubbed “the demarcation problem”), and the attacks against science from the forces of anti-intellectualism and even from inside academia.  Highly recommended.

Visit Dr. P on the web at RationallySpeaking.org, or listen to his new podcast–co-hosted with NYC Skeptics’ Julia Galeth–at RationallySpeakingPodcast.org.

Listen to our previous interview with Dr. P (from way back in February 2008) in podcast #11.

(more…)

  • Share/Bookmark