Book Review: Hitchens and Rand

I finished reading Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Eh. I guess it was OK. I think I liked it more than Dawkins' similar book and less than Harris', but I can't be certain that my opinions aren't dependent on the order in which I read them, there's less convincing to do and I've already heard a bunch of the arguments before. Just like Dawkins went into tangents on his area of expertise (evolution), Hitchens goes off on his (men of letters). I guess details from the lives of Jefferson, Paine, Descartes and others are more interesting to me than the minutia of evolution, but I also thought the writing jumped around more than necessary.

I also finished listening to Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead on tape. It was ridiculously simplistic. And by that I mean I think of it what David Cross thinks of Scott Stapp, the lead singer of crap-band Creed. (This opinion is best summarized by paraphrasing the hidden track on Cross' comedy album It's Not Funny. "Awful, evil, sellout, fraudulent, 10th grade suburban white girl bull----. I swear, that guy hangs out outside a junior high school girls locker room writing down poetry he overhears. 'What? I will take you higher? OK, good.' Simplistic pseudo-spiritual bull----.") Did I mention I met David Cross on the subway once? I think I'm going to read some older Russian novels next to make up for Rand.

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