More Book Reviews

Here are more reviews of some books I have read (or, at least, started reading) over the past few months (see here for my previous book reviews)…

Griftopia (Matt Taibbi) – ♦♦♦♦♦ 5 stars
Wow, what an amazing book!  I am actually in the process now of reading this for a second time.  Matt Taibbi breaks down the actual reasons for the financial collapse through some incredible investigative journalism.  It’s depressing that 99% of Americans won’t read this book or have any idea of what is going on in this country.  Taibbi rips into many people who he blames for the financial collapse and the ineffective response  including Alan Greenspan, tea partiers, Goldman Sachs, Obama, Bill Clinton, AIG, Bush, and virtually every stooge that gets elected to Congress or the Senate.  I highly recommend this book!

50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God (Guy P. Harrison) – ♦♦♦♦ 4 stars
This book is broken into 50 chapters, each a response to a reason religious people give for believing what they believe.  Unlike most books on atheism, this book takes a non-combative tone.  It does come off as somewhat condescending, but this was no problem at all for me.  I found this book a funny and interesting read.

Helter Skelter (Vincent Bugliosi) – ♦♦♦♦♦ 5 stars
The true story of the Manson murders.  Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecuting attorney, provides vivid details on everything anyone would ever want to know about Charlie Manson and his “Family”.  I could not put this book down once a started reading it.  Absolutely mind-blowing!

The Portable Athiest (Christopher Hitchens) – ♦♦ 2 stars
This is a collection of essays from many great thinkers about atheism.  I found most of these essays boring and repetitive.  I love Hitchens, but I just didn’t enjoy this book at all.

The Grand Design (Stephen Hawking & Leonard Mlodinow) – ♦♦♦ 3 stars
An interesting, but brief, intro to modern scientific thought.  I found the concept of M-theory particularly interesting.  Though anytime I read about things like quantum mechanics, string theory, etc. I just don’t totally grasp it.  It’s just over my head and no matter how many times I re-read it, I can’t understand it like I would like to.  I enjoyed this book but when I reached the end, I felt like there should have been more.

Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley (Timothy White) – ♦♦ 2 stars
I read a good portion of this book, but barely any of it was about Bob Marley.  There was a lot of information about the area he grew up in, his family, people around him and the Rastafarian religion.  If that is what you are looking for, this book is for you.  Maybe there was more about Bob Marley in the later chapter, but I gave up before it.

The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (Sam Harris) – ♦♦ 2 stars
I was really looking forward to this book after seeing this lecture.  The premise of the lecture (seemed to me, anyway) was that reason, as opposed to religious dogma, should determine morality, which I agree with.  The premise of the book is that we can determine human morality through science.  This seems intriguing… unfortunately, the logic and reasoning Harris uses in this book doesn’t make sense at all to me.  I was unconvinced to say the least.  I guess this is the response to centuries of people using religion to answer moral questions.  My question is why does morality need to be answered by science or religion?

The Great Derangement (Matt Taibbi) – ♦♦♦♦♦ 5 stars
Matt Taibbi goes “undercover” infiltrating a Texas-based wacko church group.  The telling of this story is both hilarious and sad.  He does a great job of capturing the mentality of the people who join these megachurches.  He also writes one of the funniest things I’ve ever read: a hypothetical/mock conversation about September 11th conspiracy theorists that eviscerates 9/11 Truthers.  This book is kind of all over the place, also touching on the dysfunction in Washington, the 2008 primaries and Wall Street.  Even with no clear direction, this book is well worth your time.

Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free (Charlie Pierce) – ♦♦♦ 3 stars
This book is a rip session on the American right.  While sometimes hilarious and usually on point, I found that I had read about most of this stuff before.  Also, this is a pretty clearly biased view.  I agreed with most of what was written here, but didn’t feel like reading this book was doing anything positive for me, so I stopped about halfway through.