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Books

Some of these I listened to from Audible, others I read. So if you're having trouble finding the book, check Audible!

  • The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis S Collins - The book that started my unraveling. I read it in an attempt to find valid scientific justification for maintaining my belief. I found it lacking.
  • Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris - Possibly the book that launched a thousand Making Sense podcast episodes, and gave Sam initial exposure.
  • God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens - I thoroughly enjoy watching Hitch's debates on YouTube.
  • The Reason for God by Timothy Keller - Recommended by a Christian friend as a response to some of the ideas I raised with them.
  • Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills by Steven Novella - A series of uni lectures by a neurologist and critical thinker, also one of the hosts of The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast, and the founder of the Science-Based Medicine blog.
  • The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan - Renowned science communicator and I also highly recommend reading his "Pale Blue Dot" speech.
  • Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari - An interesting take on human history, though I don't agree with his thoughts on everything.
  • Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari - The sequel is never as good, but I'm a completionist.
  • The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris
  • Free Will by Sam Harris
  • Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker
  • The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt - I found this really useful for tempering some of my feelings in conversations with Christians after deconverting and avoiding the "angry atheist" phase as much as possible.
  • Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson - See above
  • Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell - See above
  • Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words by David Whyte - A recent read that I found resonated a lot with me, though it's a bit off topic from the rest of the list!