books you would recommend... anti-witness and otherwise???? SHARE!!! (page 4)

wildflowermeadow

I'm reading WHO WROTE THE BIBLE by Richard Elliott Friedman. Fascinating and a great read. Really gets into the history of the times the Hebrew Scriptures were being written.

BizzyBee

The Orwellian World of Jehovah's Witnesses by Heather and Gary Botting, two former pioneers who are now an anthropologist and professor of English, respectively.

A good read, lots of JW history.

Twitch

The Orwellian World of Jehovah's Witnesses by Heather and Gary Botting, two former pioneers who are now an anthropologist and professor of English, respectively.

I read that one; pretty good with the comparisons, not too "heavy", not enough pictures though IMO :)

Another good one I read around the same time was

Visions of Glory: A History and a Memory of Jehovah’s Witnesses by BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON

Online version available; click the link.

BizzyBee

Visions of Glory: A History and a Memory of Jehovah’s Witnesses by BARBARA GRIZZUTI HARRISON

I wholeheartedly agree. BGH was actually the first ex-dub I ever "knew" (through her book) after being out nearly ten years.

A non-witness book as food for thought: In Praise of Prejudice by Theodore Dalrymple. Prejudice and discrimination are words that have gotten a bad rap and this book points out that prejudice is also the foundation of social virtue.

Hortensia

Visions of Glory and Who Wrote the Bible are a couple of favorites of mine. I also got a lot out of Women Saints East and West.

exjdub

My wife has read the United States of Europe and said it was excellent. That is my next book after I finish the Healing Promise of Qi, which is the best book by far that I have read about Qi and how it works when you do Yoga, Tai Chi, or Qigong (or any energy work).

Here is an overview of the United States of Europe:

According to the Washington Post's T.R. Reid, the nations of Europe are setting aside differences to form an entity that's gaining strength, all seemingly unbeknownst to the U.S. and its citizens. The new Europe, Reid says, "has more people, more wealth, and more trade than the United States of America," plus more leverage gained through membership in international organizations and generous foreign aid policies that reap political clout. Reid tells how European countries were willing to discontinue their individual centuries-old currencies and adopt the Euro, the monetary unit that is now a dominant force in world markets. This is noteworthy not just for exploring the considerable economic impact of the Euro, but also for what that spirit of cooperation means for every facet of Europe in the 21st century, where governments and citizens alike believe that the rewards of banding together are worth a loss in sovereignty. Reid's most compelling portrait of this trend is in the young Europeans known as "Generation E" who see themselves not as Spaniards or Czechs but simply as Europeans. To illustrate America's obliviousness to this trend, Reid tells of former GE CEO Jack Welch, who never bothered to factor European objections into a proposed multi-billion dollar merger with Honeywell, leading to the deal being torpedoed and Welch disgraced. But what is most striking in The United States of Europe is the contrast between the new Europe and the United States. The Europeans cannot match the raw military size of the U.S., but by mixing wealth with diplomacy and continental unity (helped along by antipathy toward George W. Bush's brand of Americanism), they are forming an innovative and powerful superpower. --John Moe--

exjdub

dorayakii

"The Blind Watchmaker"

"Climbing Mount Improbable"

both by Richard Dawkins. The pair of books that finally lifted the veil for me and confirmed my atheism.

"The Ancestors Tale"

by Richard Dawkins. The most illuminating and engrossing book on evolution since Origin of Species.

"1984"

by George Orwell. A macrocosm of the Watchtower Society.

Read this year:

"God Is Not Great"

by Christopher Hitchins. Far less confrontational than Dawkins' equivalent but quite verbose.

"The Portable Atheist"

edited by Christopher Hitchins. A collection of illuminating excerpts from atheist writings fromLucretius, throughSalmon Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, toKarl Marx, David Hume and Carl Sagan.

"The Orwellian World of Jehovah's Witnesses"

by Heather and Gary Botting. Coincidently, Heather was the anthropology professor of one of my non-JW Canadian friends in Japan. I also was stopped by a Japanese "sister" in a train and asked in Japanese "are you a Jehovah's Witness?" because the page I was reading happened to have a large picture of a Watchtower cover on it.

"Guns, Germs and Steel"

by Jared Diamond. A great book explaining the inequality between different "races" and the underlying reasons behind the great differences between their technological achievements and "civilisation" or lack of it. Great for those people who have always intuitively felt that there is nothing intrinsic in skin colour that leads to intelligence or civilisation.

"The Wind-up Bird Chronicle"

"Kafka on the Shore"

both by Murakami Haruki. Very typically Japanese surreal fiction novels.

Dorayakii of the bookworm class...

purplesofa

We can't put this one down: "A History of the End of the World, How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization," by Jonathan Kirsch.

I am reading another book by Johnathan Kirsch

God Against the Gods

eat, pray, love by Elizabeth Gilbert, a book I thoroughly enjoyed.

purps