What if I'm an Atheist?, by David Seidman

The book "What if I'm an Atheist?" is a Non-fiction book containing general information about Atheism and Atheist. It includes the different types of Atheist and what they mean (i.e Humanitarians), what being an Atheist means, what being an anti-Atheist doesn't mean, peoples experiences, points of view from theists and Atheistwell as ways to live out your life as an Atheist with other people's experiences to look on. It even includes information about famous Atheist and how they bring their input into our world, people like Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins etc.. It is a book filled with statistics, quotes, graphs and other sources. It does give some advice but just as I mentioned before, it is mostly just general information for anyone who is curious about the topic of Atheism.

"What if I'm an Atheist?" is over all, a pretty interesting read. It delves into a lot of information and gives a lot of studied facts to back up what David Seidman is saying. Most of the information you can trust because of that. This book is great because of how it handles the information; Before moving on to a new topic or giving his own opinion, he takes everyone's point of view into account first. He will usually give a few quotes or passages from people who see differently from each other. When talking about something like Atheism, it is good to take in every point of view and the author does it very well. This book shows how both Atheist and theists should behave toward each other, while also giving a few tips Atheists could use when faced common questions or arguments. This book does have one fault that does bother me, and that is it's organization. There just seems to be not too much thought into how the book should've been laid out as far as formatting. The author also doesn't seem to give enough of his own input, it is mostly quotes and statistics. While this isn't too much of a bad thing, it wasn't what I was expecting and does drag the book down when I see a quote from somebody every sentence or two. Although, despite this it still is a great read and relatively quick too. It can be enjoyed by just about anything, already atheists or even those of religion. It is, in a way, an entry level book to atheism. I'd recommend just about any young atheist to take a read.

Reviewed by Logan W., Grade 9

Glendale Central Library