Before about a year ago, I strictly read novels, typically Isabelle Allende or Gabriel Garcia Marquez, not allowing anything of the non-fiction variety into my repertoire. However; after a chance encounter with a free book I snagged at the Scarborough-Phillips Library annual book-giveaway, I had to broaden my reading genre horizons. "A Gradual Awakening", by Steve Levine, opened my doors to books dealing with religion. This particular book deals with the powers of meditation and never directly infers a specifc religions meditational standards.
This finding lead me to the wry, no-holds-bars writing style of Christopher Hitchens, a stoically firm believer in atheism. The first, and so far, only book I have read by is "God is not Great", a book that challenges the history and actions of all religious institutions. I can say, for an almost certainty, that I learned more about religion as a whole in his book than 10 years of parochial schools have provided me.
While I am still a fiction fanatic, these two non-fictions on religion, in completely different manners, have had a great impact on the way I think and feel about much of what is happening around me. I would say to anyone that finds themselves believing that have all the answers, or least enough to suffice them for the rest of their days, needs to do more searching. And religious texts of any sort can provide.
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I was a novel-reader for a long time also... never really believed a book could spark any kind of change in my life. Then I read Simon Wiesenthal's "The Sunflower." It definitely had an impact on me. So far that's been the only book that's really had such an effect, but I guess the possibilities are limitless.
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