Big Miracle, by Tom Rose

Big Miracle, by Tom Rose.  St. Martin's, 2011.  324 pp.  978-0-312-62519-1.

... in which we learn about the international effort to rescue three California Gray whales trapped under the ice near Barrow, Alaska.

This is a review of an advanced copy provided to me through Goodreads' FirstReads program.

Big Miracle is the true story of the rescue of three trapped whales in 1988.  The whales started their southern migration too late in the summer season, and soon found themselves trapped in the ice near Barrow, Alaska (the northernmost point of the United States).  The story became an international tale, with people all around the world watching the events unfold on TV, and with an international group of people coming together to rescue these animals.  Presumably this book was the inspiration for the movie of the same name being released this February, but I'm really skeptical.

Day by Day Armageddon by J.L. Bourne

An American man trying to survive a zombie crisis writes a daily journal chronicling his challenges and moods.

An American military pilot is aware of rumors and speculation regarding a strange disease.  He takes steps to be prepared for a pandemic, and is well positioned to survive the zombie apocalypse.  This book tells the story of his preparation for and adventures during the beginning of a zombie plague. 

There are minor spoilers in this review.  My suggestion is to read the spoilers, then go read World War Z instead of this book.

Opening Atlantis, by Harry Turtledove

Opening Atlantis, by Harry Turtledove.  ROC, 2007.  440 pp.  978-0-451-46174-2.

... in which we hear of the exploits of the Radcliffe family as they discover, settle, and lead a new community on the island of Atlantis.

Harry Turtledove is most famous for his alternate history novels.  In this book, the first of a trilogy, Turtledove explores the idea of an extra continent (or large island) in the Atlantic Ocean.  Although this island is named Atlantis by its discoverers, it's not actually the lost Atlantis of legend.  As you can see from the cover art above, Atlantis is basically the eastern United States, broken off from North America and now situated in the middle of the Atlantic.  Opening Atlantis follows the Radcliffe family through several generations after the founding of Atlantis.  The book is divided into three parts.  The first part is set in the mid-1400s during the War of the Roses, and follows Edward Radcliffe and his sons Richard and Henry as they discover Atlantis and bring the first wave of European settlers to this new world.  The second part is set about two centuries later, and follows the confrontation between Red Rodney Radcliffe (pirate) and his cousin William Radcliff (who changed his last name so as not to be associated with his pirate cousin).  The third part of the novel follows Victor Radcliff a few generations later, as he witnesses mounting tensions between English, French, and Spanish settlers, as well as tensions between the Europeans and their slaves.

Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber

This book collects several short stories about the pulp fantasy duo Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, detailing their histories and how they came to be partners in adventure.

Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser are sort of credited as the grandfathers of the modern day fantasy protagonist as the self-interested antihero, but in this case I think they're the type of grandfathers that make everyone uncomfortable and tell racist jokes.

This review should contain no significant spoilers.

How to Dunk a Doughnut by Len Fisher

In which Fisher describes mildly amusing and unusual applications of scientific thought including the absorption of liquid by cookies and the way sperm swims.

I think the problem with many popular science books is that they are either too dumb and cutesy or two rigorous and boring.  This book isn't difficult to understand, particularly, it's just boring.  I kept wanting to check to make sure that this Len Fisher was the same Len Fisher who wrote Rock, Paper, Scissors because I LOVED that book and was bored to death by this one.  It was the same guy, just a totally different quality of writing in my opinion!

Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves

In which a boy finds himself caught up in an inter-dimensional war.

Joey is living a normal life when he is hunted down and thrust into a war between factions seeking control of multiple dimensions of earth.  Interworld follows his initial adventures in other dimensions.

This review contains some moderate, non plot-ruining spoilers!

Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson

In which a chunk of the world is mysteriously transformed in a single event, and explorer/photographer Guilford Law attempts to make sense of it.

This book had it all in terms of things that make me dislike books.  It had characters that I could not care about, it had a setting that took half the book to sort of explain, it had sloppy perspectives and it had jumps in time where decades were skipped.  Most of all it was just confusing and boring though. 

This review will subsequently contain spoilers because I won't recommend this book and can't be bothered to not spoil it!

Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein

In which we learn about how simple nudges could help us make better decisions.

Nudge is about how people make less than optimal choices, as determined by themselves or by other standards. We eat more than we know we should, work out and save less, yet it's hard for most of us to do what we know we should. Nudge is about how we (or in some cases some third party) can cause better choices to be made in simple ways.

God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of the Bible by CJ Werleman

I downloaded this book mostly on the merits of the title; it sounded like it ought to be pretty damn funny. I was also interested in the author’s idea of using the Bible as evidence against its own God. The purpose of the book was to show, using the actual text of the Holy Bible, that God is rather a horrible person to be worshipping. The author’s strategy was to go through each book of the Bible, summarizing the general ideas and discussing particularly horrifying scriptures.

Unfortunately, this book was not nearly as entertaining as the title would suggest. The author started out by throwing in a lot of jokes, some of which were even funny, but many of which were just sort of lame. As he gets into the middle of the book, he kind of forgets to make any jokes or commentary and just summarizes each book of the Bible. Which gets pretty boring. I might not have even bothered finishing the book if it weren’t for the fact that I wanted to review it.

I think the author did a good job of picking out the specific scriptures that most Christians either aren’t aware of or deliberately choose to ignore. He makes a number of good points about them. However, sometimes I think his arguments could’ve been more persuasive if they had been better written. While I agreed with nearly everything he was saying, I don’t think his writing could convince anyone who started out even the least bit critical of his viewpoint. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for anyone religious, since most of his jokes are very deliberately offensive and his writing isn’t especially persuasive. It would be handy for pissing people off, but not necessarily for making them think twice about their beliefs.

Overall, I probably wouldn’t recommend this book. Some of the content is good, but it’s not all that enjoyable to read. Maybe the best parts of the book are the quotations at the start of each chapter. One that particularly cracked me up was this: “Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you’re going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love.” – Butch Hancock. Anyhow, to get back on topic, I’m quite certain that you could find this information from much more interesting and well-written sources. I’d give it 2 stars.

Train Man by Nakano Hitori

Train Man is a love story set in Japan and told through threads on the chat forum 2-Channel. One day, a geek is riding the train when he notices a drunken old man harassing some women. In a rare display of courage, he steps in and defends the women. Not to say that he performs some heroic feat; he just tells the guy off rather than pretending that nothing is happening (which would be the more typical response). The old man tries to pick a fight, and at that point another passenger steps in to help. At the next station, the pervert is arrested and the women on the train thank him for defending them. One of them happens to be young and rather attractive; she was the person sitting next to him before the commotion started. The geek relates this story to his friends on 2-Channel, and is dubbed Train Man from here on out.

Storm Front by Jim Butcher

I'm about ten years late reading this first novel of the Dresden Files. The Dresden Files is a paranormal detective story replete with Noir archetypes. Our hero, Harry Dresden, is a wizard for hire and private investigator.

Don't Vote by P.J. O'Rourke

Do you ever find reading things makes you physically uncomfortable? Reading rape scenes in books usually does that to me. So did this book, oddly. The spun out half-truths and fallacies made me a little ill. Needless to say, I didn't care for this book too much.


Don't Vote is O'Rourke's attempt to humorously describe all kinds of facets of politics in America. His main message, other than pushing his political bias, is that government is too big and full of flawed people. This book won't teach you anything, I didn't find it remarkably entertaining, and it is full of spite and spinning of the truth.



O'Rourke has a formula for his humor, at least in this book, which is the first and last thing of his I am planning on reading! He takes analogies really far. That's it, that's the humor in this book. It was mildly amusing to me at first, but got really old once I had noticed the formula.

I bought this book after hearing about it on NPR. O'Rourke came on the show and read the chapter on climate change. It's about a page long and I found it to be mildly amusing and fairly insightful. As far as I can tell, it's the most/only insightful part of the book. I recommend you read this by going to your bookstore and reading the climate change chapter (starts on page 149 in my copy) and not actually buy the book.

Here are some fairly representative samples of things that made me go, "wait, what??" while reading this book. I could elaborate, and these don't touch on his major fallacies.

...terrorism is not... just a product of left-wing politics and its offshoot fascism. (p 181)

Gun ownership is crucial to the preservation of American freedoms. We may have to shoot Democrats. It happened in 1861 and it could happen again. (p 165)

So if you think analogies taken really far are hilarious, and the quotes above amuse or comfort you, you might actually like this book. I did not. My brief foray into reading political books ends now.

Emily pointed out to me that leaving out what this guy's political position is makes it harder for any readers of this blog (are there any readers of this blog?) to judge whether or not they would enjoy it. OK, he's a libertarian/conservative. He complains about tea-baggers, republicans, etc. but mostly about democrats.

Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennett

I don't even know what to say about this book. It took me a month to read, and just almost put me off reading in general for ever. I had wanted to read Dennett for a while, as he was the only one of the "four horsemen" that I hadn't read. This book was my book club's selection for February, I didn't even come close to finishing in time. So here we are.


Breaking the Spell is supposed to be an examination of religion, including its causes and results, maybe looking at whether overall religion is a negative or positive impact. Dennett is a notable atheist, but in Breaking the Spell he sort of tries not to write in a pro-atheism manner. It's not very convincing. He pretended to be unbiased, but it was abundantly clear throughout that the book was not a disinterested analysis of religion, but largely for its demise.

The audience Dennett thought he was writing for is incredibly unclear. It certainly wasn't for well-read atheists or anyone who has read more relevant things about the origins and effects associated with religion. Dennett claims that the book is written towards religious people, hoping they will read it and step back and really look at their religion. Somehow I don't see this happening. You wouldn't even have to be very dogmatic to automatically reject Dennett's ideas in this book, his writing makes it almost necessary to reject what he says, somehow! A typical, "unbiased" passage from Breaking the Spell:

It might be that the best that can be said for religion is that it helps some people achieve the level of citizenship and morality typically found in brights (atheists)." (page 55)

His little hypothetical judgments were not very helpful, and certainly reflected his views, regardless of how disinterested he was trying to come off. So many things in this book are well suited to driving away anyone not already in his camp.

This book was also very rambling, repetitive and boring. It never really got anywhere, it mostly just kept saying, "this is what I'll show" without showing much. This was not a conclusive, persuasive treatise on why atheism is better than religion, although maybe that's what Dennett wanted it to be. There were many, many times I finished a paragraph (or page, or chapter...) and realized I didn't remember the point of what I had just read. It was written in such a way that the point of many parts of the book was really unclear.

In summary, this book is a big meh. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, religious, atheist, or whatever. It's just an epic waste of time that would probably really irritate a religious person for no good reason!

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

The third and final installment of the Hunger Games series concludes the story decisively. In my opinion, this was the weakest of the series for a variety of reasons.

While I appreciate the intensity of the characters being driven insane by their adventures, their lack of agency in a lot of what they do and what happens to them is really frustrating. This plays into the fact that this is not and never was a rebellion that belonged to Katniss, she just played a small part in it.

Perhaps I read the first two books wrong. I interpreted the scenes involving beauticians and fashion in the first two to be examples of the celebrity obsessed decadence of the Capitol as a mirror to the subsistence of the districts. In this book, her primary contribution to the war effort isn't in her physical ability to kill without peer... it isn't in her brilliant mind or vicious personality... it's her appearance in front of a camera, and once again things like outfits, presentation, and inspiring emotions through acting matter more than anything else.

New characters keep being introduced, but we keep failing to get to know them as well as we used to. People like Boggs, Messalla, Jackson, Homes, Castor, McGillicutty, and Cressida are all people in it and I couldn't tell you one character trait of any of them. We meet Finnick's friend Annie and I think she gets a single sentence of characterization. Heck, we finally really meet Gale and pretty much all we ever learn about him is that he's an asshole.

Most of the interesting and formidable problems introduced in the Hunger Games with formulating this rebellion were solved outside the character's understanding or control. We're told their actions had relevance, but except for one or two moments in the book seem to actually hinge on their participation. The characters we know don't arm the districts, communicate between them, mobilize them in an organized fashion, plan an overall strategy, or anything like that. Most of their time is spent hallucinating in hospital beds.

The... thing... that Coin may or may not have done (to use Emma's terminology) just doesn't make sense, no matter how you slice it. Neither side had a good motivation for doing it, and had no reason to expect it to even work if they had. It was just necessary for the book to reach the final conclusion and felt really contrived.

Really, the only thing that remains as high quality as ever through all this is Katniss. She remains an interesting character right to the end, despite how crazy she's gotten by now. Every character centric scene about her (that doesn't take place in a broom closet or nightmare/hallucination in a hospital bed) rings completely true.

Endings are hard. I wish this had been better, but it did work. The darkness and violence this one was able to go to let it feel like it was a real war, I just wish our characters were allowed to have participated to a larger extent in what happened in it.

Burning Alive by Shannon Butcher

I did it, I read a romance novel. No one can say I haven't given the genre a chance now. It is not an experience I care to repeat!


This is not a G rated review, because it is about an adult book.


Burning Alive is a fantasy/romance story set in modern America. It might have given a year and a city that I failed to notice, even. It follows Helen, a woman who has had a vision her entire life of burning alive while a tall, dark and handsome man observes and smiles. When she sees this man, Drake, he turns out to be one of a dying race of super-powerful, ancient, beefy demon-hunters. Turns out, earth is the battlefield on which these beefcakes and demons are waging a war. Drake and Helen have all kinds of brain orgasms when he touches her, and he goes into convulsions or something when she pulls away so he drags her around for a while until they solve that problem. Of course, they are both instantly irresistibly attracted to one another despite Helen's fear and physical and mental deficiencies. That's about enough of that plot.

I don't know if this is normal in romance stories, but I was a little weirded out by it. The men in the story were domineering and overbearing, and pretty much did what they wanted to the female objects of their affection. Which the women liked. I take issue with the idea that women want to be controlled and basically forced into things, even if the ultimate goal is all kinds of explosive orgasms. Drake was literally dragging Helen around for most of the book and throwing her onto beds or holding her in place BY HER THROAT! How is that ok??

My other problem with this book, which I actually think might be true of most romance stories, is the characterization of the main character. She was really, really weak. In all ways she was this feminine ideal of powerlessness, kindness, and hormones. Not exactly a role model. She kept needing rescued, kept screwing everything up because she freaked out. And woke up in Drake's strong, comforting arms, blah blah blah. I think she was written this way so that, in theory, the reader could insert herself emotionally into the story. Or maybe I am just a misogynistic cynic to think so poorly of my fellow lady readers!

I don't know if I should condemn all of the romance genre based on this one book (which, incidentally, I read because it was my Scifi/Fantasy book club's pick once) which may not be representative of the entire genre. There are probably better romance novels out there, maybe even ones with strong female characters and incontrovertibly consensual sex! I don't really like reading about sex though. I would rather read a good story that isn't obligated to talk about people's erections straining their jeans, or their nipples hardening every few pages. So I think that's it for me and romance!

I would be very interested to see a defense of the genre, or better yet this book from someone else who has read it. I just don't get it!

This World We Live In, by Susan Beth Pfeffer

This World We Live In, by Susan Beth Pfeffer. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010. 239 pp. 978-0-547-24804-2.

... the conclusion of Miranda and Alex's stories, and the conclusion of The Last Survivors Trilogy.

At 239 pp, This World We Live In is a much shorter read than either Miranda's or Alex's initial entries into the trilogy. Picking up about a month after the end of Life As We Knew It, and about four months after the end of The Dead and the Gone, the third book in the series brings together all of the major characters from the first two books. Going back to narration via Miranda's diary, we're once again seeing everything from her perspective in her small town in Pennsylvania. At the beginning of the novel, Miranda's brothers Matt and Jon leave for a week to see if they can catch any fish. When they return, Miranda's older brother Matt brings with him a woman that he introduces as Syl, his wife. This adds more strain onto the already precarious food situation that the Evans family faces. On top of that, a few weeks later Miranda's father returns to town, bringing with him his wife Lisa, their newborn son Gabriel, their friend Charlie, and Alex and Julie.

This is by far and away the weakest book in the trilogy. First of all, it's never really clear how Alex and Julie happened to join up with Miranda's father. Secondly, nothing really happens until the very end, except for people getting short with each other over the lack of resources. I guess the first two books showed the strength of human endurance, love and altruism, as all of the major characters in the first two books made large sacrifices for the well-being of their loved ones. Perhaps this love and altruism is starting to wear thin, because by the first anniversary of the moon disaster, people sure are showing their worst sides. Matt, the previously strong and capable heroic older brother, becomes selfish and petty. Miranda's mom, previously generous and loving, becomes miserly with their resources and turns into a reclusive shut-in. Miranda shows her age as a 17-year-old girl who's in way over her head. Alex is obsessed with sending Julie to a nunnery, despite the fact that everyone else sees that that's an awful idea. Despite the explanations offered throughout the whole book, Alex's reasoning never really makes sense to me. Maybe that was the point?

By the end of the book, I pretty much wanted Matt to go away and never return, and I didn't really care what happened to Dad and Lisa, except that I knew that I never wanted to read about another of their prayer circles. Perhaps Alex's religion felt more genuine to me, because it's a really central part of who he is, but the prayers of Miranda's father and Lisa seemed kind of fake and desperate.

I also found it a little implausible how quickly Miranda and Alex fall in love. (This does not count as a spoiler, because they're a boy and girl of the same age and this is teen fiction, after all) I guess that in this new world, you live hard and you live fast, and you take whatever chances you can get. It probably doesn't hurt that this is the first non-relative boy her age that Miranda has seen in over a year.

The book flap says that after "a devastating tornado hits the town", then "Miranda makes a decision that will change their lives forever". Despite the fact that it's implied that this tornado is a major event, it doesn't actually happen until pg 212 of 239. The major decision that Miranda makes probably didn't change anyone's life but her own, as the consequences of the decision would have come about regardless of whether Miranda had intervened. So basically, the first 212 pages of this book are just filled with people milling around arguing about food, and the last 27 pages just feel forced and contrived. I can't help but feel like Pfeffer just wanted to be over and done with this trilogy, because the pacing is really off, the plot is contrived and lame, and the characters just aren't all there. The addition of the totally pointless characters of Syl and Charlie take something away from the book too, as they draw the reader's attention away from the people we really care about, namely, Miranda and Alex.

I will say a few things in praise of this book. Bravo to Pfeffer for having the guts to definitively END a successful and probably fairly lucrative teen/young adult series, and to actually show that some journeys don't end with "all was well". There are always consequences, and happy endings aren't the only way to end young adult fiction. Most teens can handle something other than a shiny happy ending, and if they can't handle grittier stories, then I'm astonished they made it to book three of this trilogy. Anyway, it's been refreshing seeing a teen fiction trilogy that doesn't pull its punches, despite the fact that the ending disappointed me.

I would still recommend reading the first two books in the trilogy, but unless you're really desperate to find out what happens after those books, I'd skip this. If you really do want to read it, it's a super fast read (took me less than two hours).

2/5 stars

Hitch 22 by Christopher Hitchens

This book was a gigantic (422 page, in fact) disappointment. I found his other book "god is Not Great" (his capitalization choices) fairly interesting, and I had enjoyed some article-length things he has written. This book was so boring and pointless. It was over 400 pages of Hitchens engaging in solipsistic name dropping.


Literally page after page of this book was descriptions of how Hitchens knew important poets, future politicians or activists and how much they all loved him. Barf. I kept waiting for the part about name dropping to end, but it really didn't. It was like the entire point of the book was for Hitchens to set down in writing how he met all of these people, how important and awesome they were, and how much they adored him. Gag.

The interesting part was about his childhood. There were some brave revelations and relevant background information. As soon as the book got to his college days it stopped being deep or revealing and just seemed to be him making an unconvincing case for what a clever, important man he is. I have never been all about reading autobiographies, but I thought they were supposed to have insight and history that would be relevant for someone other than personal friends of the author.

So my advice is to not buy this book. Borrow it from someone who was dumb enough to buy it, and read the chapter titled "Mesopotamia from Both Sides". It starts on page 281. You're welcome. This chapter was about the current middle east situation and America's involvement. Hitchens does have some interesting things to say about the topic, and keeps the name dropping to an almost tolerable level in this chapter. Unless you really want to know about the parties Hitchens attended with various poets and activists you've probably never heard of, skip the rest.

Solitude, by Robert Kull

Solitude: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes, by Robert Kull. New World Library, 2008. 352 pages.

...in which the author does crazy things and tries far too hard to be profound.

This book is essentially a journal written by Robert Kull as he spent slightly over a year living alone on a tiny island off the coast of southern Chile. As the subtitle implies, his purpose was to obtain some kind of wisdom from his time alone, to reconnect to himself and to the environment. This project also happens to be the basis of his PhD dissertation.

First of all, Kull was hardly living like Survivorman on his tiny island. He was certainly living in a very spartan manner, but he had some basic necessities and comforts. He had survival and camping gear, enough plywood to construct a tiny cabin, tarps, wind generator, solar panels, sat phone, laptop, GPS, enough food for a year, basic tools, a kayak, an inflatable boat with two motors, basic medical supplies... despite all of the equipment he had, the most interesting parts of the journal (for me) were the passages about how he was surviving on the island. His descriptions of picking a campsite, building his cabin, etc were interesting, but the passages where he reflected on less mundane topics were (mostly) either dull or irritating.

My first complaint is that Kull has a habit of capitalizing certain Nouns, in order to give them Significance. This is one of the more annoying Habits he has in his Writing.

Secondly, I find it hard to have any sympathy or empathy for him, simply because he doesn't sound like a very nice guy sometimes. He takes a cat to the island with him; this was an unexpected development that occurred when a woman in Chile gave him a kitten just before he departed for the island. For most of his year in isolation, he seems to find the cat to be a nuisance, and sometimes treats the cat in a manner that is bordering on cruel.

His philosophical/spiritual/metaphysical/whatever musings were sometimes kind of interesting, but for the most part he didn't really say anything NEW, that I could see. Perhaps it is because I am not an especially spiritual person, but I don't really buy in to most of what he says.

One of the more interesting results of his experiment in solitude was how it gave him a very different perspective on world events. During his time in isolation, he asked that no one try to give him news of the outside world unless an immediate friend or family member was dying. His year in solitude took place from February 2001 to late March, 2002, so by the time he returned, the world had seen some pretty significant events take place. His reaction to hearing about 9/11, months after it had occurred, was pretty understated:

Patti also brought news of September 11, 2001. Hearing about it didn't affect me very deeply, because by then all the activities of humanity seemed no more than a vague smudge on the far horizon. From the city, and even from this small town where I now sit writing, the island- and other remote corners of the Earth where we humans have not yet left our mark- seems distant and somehow unreal; a fading remnant of what once was. But on the island, especially during the last months, that far-off region of nature was the ancient center of my world. All the frantic activity of human society- cities, highways, pollution, and endless frothing news reports- were an ethereal dream.
So hearing that two of those phantom buildings, among so many, had been destroyed didn't mean much in the huge endless pulse of the universe... Many more than three thousand people die in the world each day from unnecessary starvation and preventable disease. Probably more people die in the United States each month from gunshots, smoking, drug and alcohol abuse, and the lack of affordable medical care. These deaths usually go unremarked and often seem as unreal to most people as 9/11 does to me. (pp 300-301)

Perhaps his hard-won wisdom from his year on the island gave him new insight on the value of human life, and new insight on what makes a death significant. Either way, I think he succeeded in disconnecting himself from humanity, if he thinks 9/11 "didn't mean much in the huge endless pulse of the universe".

In summary: I would recommend skimming the first 100 or so pages for the interesting bits, and skip the rest.

The New Atheism by Victor Stenger

This book would probably have been more interesting if I hadn't already read it all in several other books. Maybe if I had read "The New Atheism" first it would be my favorite. That said, here are my issues.

Problem 1:
Harris 14
Dawkins 13
Hitchens 10
Dennet 10

The list above is the number of pages/ranges in which Stenger cites that author. It understates the total since there are whole sections on Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens that are counted as one citation. He also cites his own books quite a bit. The book is incredibly derivative. He doesn't have his own ideas to discuss. The book is sort of an amalgamation of better books. It isn't even done in an appropriate way. I felt like the first half of the book was just a giant paraphrase of "Hey Dawkins! Hey Harris! Stop the bandwagon, I am getting on!"


Stenger seems to really want to have the definitive book on "New Atheism" belonging to him, but all he can do to achieve this is summarize what others have already said. His desire to be one of the Four Horsemen is apparent when he lists important atheists as Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Stenger. It was a little pathetic.

Problem 2:
Atheism isn't a religion. "New Atheists" are not a group of people that can be identified by anything other than a lack of belief in any god. Stenger seems to think that we all think, believe and, of all things, vote in a certain way. Stenger loves his Obama, but that does not mean that all atheists do! We are a diverse group of people. I object to him trying to classify us as all having the same political priorities and views on all kinds of things. Global warming? I don't care what Stenger, me or your mom believes, atheists do not all believe in or care about global warming. I do not believe that atheists in general share any trait other than a lack of belief in gods and the guts to be honest about that lack of belief.

In Summary
Just... don't bother. Read Richard Dawkins "The God Delusion" or Christopher Hitchens "God is Not Great" instead of getting Stenger's cliff notes version with his stupid opinions thrown in. Dawkins and Hitchens are a ton more entertaining too.