Religion, Christopher Hitchens writes, “is violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children.” This controversial book, which reached the top of the New York Times bestseller list, struck a resonant chord in American culture: predictably embraced in some quarters and attacked in others, it has been fiercely debated everywhere. With his usual writerly brio, Hitchens make a number of claims about religion, among them: that it calls for an unhealthy denial of human nature; that it incites violence, and servile deference to authority; that it suppresses free inquiry; and that it is scientifically inaccurate about the origins of the universe and the human race. Whether God Is Not Great infuriates you or affirms your (non)beliefs, it can hardly fail to engage you, and it provides an invigorating, if polemical, starting point for discussion.