This kind of book is necessay. Its central message, that the transcendent and - yes, whisper it - the spiritual can be divorced from the dogma and metaphysical baggage of organised religion is a good one. Unfortunately, books cannot be rated entirely by the necessity of their message - they also have to assessed as something to be read, or, in some cases, endured.

I don't mean to say that the author is a bad writer (quite the opposite in fact); rather, that the subject is inherently indescribable. This becomes most plain in the third section of the book where he gets down to describing the nature of his (non-religious) spiritual experiences. Overly long, this string of 'oceanic-feeling-at-the-centre-of-totality' style statements soon becomes tediously repetitive. Actually, to be fair, I did understand what he was talking about. Indeed, at its best, the very experience of reading can itself resemble his description: the melting away of self, of current surroundings, and the total absorbtion into characters, narrative or argument. Ironically, however, the sheer tedium induced by this barrage of gnomic sentences meant I had no chance of actually enjoying the very experience he was describing.

Even so, there was plenty to like about this book, including a very succinct and clear overview of the arguments relating to the existence of god. However, these have all been related in greater detail and with equal clarity elsewhere, and in any case don't really constitute the unique show more focus of this book. In the end, I find myself in the highly unusual situation of entirely agreeing with the author, while simultaneously having little wish to read his book. show less