Paul

It's been a while since I finished this book. I've delayed on the review because I've been busy and I didn't really know what to say. The book has been receiving a lot of pub, or at least seems that way to me since I've been following Penn & Teller on Twitter.

Penn's been in show business for a while and knows a thing or two about self promotion. His tweets relay book signing and discussion events and hyperlinks to media coverage. Whether the book is actually getting more coverage than any other book or it just seems that way because of this promotion of the coverage isn't clear to me. Maybe just another case of “You see what you’re looking for”.

Some of the receptiveness of the media to grab on to this book for a sound bite or two may come from part of the subtitle; "Signs You May Already Be an Atheist…”. But the book isn't really about that. Penn's un-region beliefs are discussed, but the book is more personal memoir than theological discourse.

Penn isn't shy about discussing his views with the media, a recurring litmus test for Atheism he offers is something along the lines of answering a hypothetical question. If God told you to kill your own child, would you do it? If you say no, you already have doubt and may actually be an atheist. Seems a bit too simple for universal application, but you get his point pretty quickly.

The majority of the book is a series of Penn's personal life experiences. Each is connected into the religion discussion in one way or another. An attempt is made to offer alternative versions of each of the 10 commandments, but it didn't come through on the audible version as a strong thread holding the book together, more a footnote at the end of each chapter. Maybe in the print version it works better.

The audio book had a nice bonus, it was read by the author. This is personal material, and having it delivered by the person himself gave it the best read imaginable. Penn's also an entertainer, and he delivers on that front too.

Overall an entertaining book, and that's the right word for it- entertaining. Questions on theology and deciding on religion probably won't be answered here. But you might be entertained and have some of your own thoughts on the concepts exercised along the way.

Not a fabulous book. While it did list many examples of mistakes, only a handful of explanations for mistakes were supplied. The emphasis was clearly on displaying "here's another example of a mistake". When an explanation was offered it was obvious information, easily inferred by listening to the mistake description. On the few occasions a recommended solution was suggested it was very weak. The book seemed to be over stuffed with examples, many very obvious, burying the few good nuggets.
Overall, this title seems to only have enough information for a magazine article but was stretched to reach book length.