Here at AAI, we are often asked to recommend books, especially by people who are doubting their religion and by people who have recently discarded their religion and want to learn more. So we put our heads together and came up with a list of our favorite books for you.
Here you will find a treasure trove of books on all aspects of atheism, including rebuttals of the arguments theists use to ‘justify’ their belief in God. There are also sections dealing with critical thinking and science, especially on cosmology which some theists pervert to find a gap for their god, and evolution which is denied by many theists. You will also find an excellent selection of children’s books which should entertain and enlighten younger readers.
Come back often—we are always adding new books.
For readers in North America, we give each book a direct link to Amazon.com where it can be purchased. For complete transparency, if you buy a book via one of our links, we will receive a small commission. It won’t cost you any more but it helps us continue our work for atheists worldwide.
On a tight budget? Look for second-hand books at Amazon.com—many popular books can be picked up for little more than a couple of dollars. Or you can read our acclaimed introductory articles on atheism for free by clicking here.
Atheism & Religion
Guy P Harrison
50 Reasons People Give for Believing in God
50 Reasons People Give for Believing in God is the basic non-believer’s handbook. You will find in this book all the common reasons, and most
Richard Dawkins
The God Delusion
A preeminent scientist—and the world’s most prominent atheist—asserts the irrationality of belief in God and the grievous harm religion has inflicted on society, from the Crusades to 9/11.
Dan Barker
Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists
Barker is articulate, intelligent, witty and immensely likable. His deconversion from fundamentalist preacher to staunch
Sam Harris
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
In The End of Faith, Sam Harris delivers a startling analysis of the clash between reason and religion in the modern world. He offers a vivid, historical tour of our
David Fitzgerald
Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All
Why would anyone think Jesus never existed? Isn’t it perfectly reasonable to accept that he was a real first century figure? As it turns out, no.
George H. Smith
Atheism: The Case Against God
George H Smith sets out to demolish what he considers the most widespread and destructive of all the myths devised by man – the concept of a supreme being.
Critical Thinking
Andrew S. Curran
Diderot and the art of thinking freely
One of the most creative and intriguing thinkers of eighteenth-century Enlightenment, Denis Diderot is probably less well known than his compatriots, Voltaire and Rousseau.
John Allen Paulos
Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences
Why do even well-educated people understand so little about mathematics? And what are the costs of our innumeracy? John Allen Paulos, in his
Carl Sagan
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science?
Steven Novella
The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe: How to Know What’s Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake
It is intimidating to realize that we live in a world overflowing with misinformation, bias, myths, deception, and flawed knowledge.
Science & Ethics
Gerry Coyne
Why Evolution is True
In the current debate about creationism and intelligent design, there is an element of the controversy that is rarely mentioned-the evidence. Yet the proof of evolution by natural selection is vast, varied, and magnificent. In this succinct and accessible summary of the facts
Neil Shubin
Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body
By examining fossils and DNA, he shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our heads are organized like long-extinct jawless fish, and major parts of our genomes look and function like those
Barbara Forrest & Paul R Gross
Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design
Forrest and Gross expose the scientific failure, the religious essence, and the political ambitions of “intelligent design” creationism. They examine the movement’s “Wedge Strategy,”
Sam Harris
The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
Sam Harris’s first book, The End of Faith, ignited a worldwide debate about the validity of religion. In the aftermath, Harris discovered that most people
Children’s Books
David G McAfee
The Book of Gods
What are gods and why do people believe in them? Where did they come from and what do they do? This book answers all those questions and more!
Gail Miller & Rosalind Eagle
Why Don’t We Go to Church?
Why Don’t We Go to Church? is a book for non-religious families whose children may face difficulties when their non-belief in a deity is questioned. It is the story of Dan and his science project “Primeval Soup”.
Carolyn Cinami DeCristofano
Big Bang! The Tongue-Tickling Tale of a Speck That Became Spectacular
Billions of years ago, everything in the universe was crunched up into a tiny speck that was smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.
Michael Rosen & Annemarie Young
What is Humanism? How do you live without a god? And Other Big Questions for Kids
What does it mean to be a humanist? Is humanism a new idea? How do people live their lives without religious beliefs?
eBooks
The Updated Kindle Paperwhite
If, like us, you love reading but hate lugging books around or the way they have a habit of filling up your shelves at home, you should think about switching to eBooks—we have!
An eBook reader can hold hundreds of books in a device little bigger than your smartphone. eBooks are generally cheaper, sometimes a lot cheaper, than paper books and no trees have to die so you can read them!
There are several eBook formats available but we think Kindle books are hard to beat. There is a fantastic range of books available in Kindle format and the way they are delivered still makes me smile. You can buy a book at Amazon on your PC or ‘phone and, by the time, you’ve picked up your Kindle device, your new book is there waiting for you to read it!
You don’t even have to buy a Kindle device. Amazon offers free apps for your Smartphone, tablet or PC, so you can read Kindle books on all the devices you already own.
But you can buy a Kindle device from under $100 USD. There are several to chose from—for us the one to go for is the updated Paperwhite. It’s light and thin with a very sharp, non-glare, paper-like display that you can read in bright sunshine or in a dark room (using the backlight). It’s waterproof, for reading in the bath, and the battery lasts for weeks between charges.
If you prefer to listen to your books, Kindle has that covered too. Pair Bluetooth speakers or headphones and you’re all set.
On top of all that, some models come with free cellular connectivity. That means, so long as you are in a location with a cell phone signal, you can download new books without wi-fi and without connecting to your PC or smartphone. Brilliant!
Last, but not least, Amazon.com ships Kindle devices to dozens of countries around the world.