Simply.

Stunning.

Personally, and whether it sounds biased on the grounds that I held little religious beliefs before, everybody should read this book – atheist, gentile, jew, muslim, hindu, roman, jedi, whoever.

Dawkins makes clearly logical arguments covering many areas, many of which I’d never thought of before but leading me to re-analyze where and why I stand on certain issues, the one example coming to mind right now being the appreciation and mute acceptance of other beliefs and their associated traditions and the cultural ‘benefits’ they bring (the primary example being the Amish community).

His arguments are clear-cut and thought provoking, providing the evidence and logic needed to encourage the inquisitiveness and scepticism to constantly question and take facts into consideration.

But there’s a price to pay for all this, and when I first started reading the book – even, as I mentioned earlier without any real religious background to counter – I found the attitude at times too abrasive and sometimes petty, in a similar vein to how I find over-zealous people of other religious backgrounds abrasive sometimes. But then other times you see that this approach sometimes has to be taken on the non-religious side and leaves one questioning why the atheist side of the spectrum is so (relatively) muted on voicing their arguments and reasoning. One would presume it is a feeling of consideration, or not wanting to cause offence. There’s also, of course, the danger that it’s not politically correct.

Whilst the language is clear, the references solid, and the various facts and ‘true stories’ sometimes shocking, it is not easy reading. But it is addictive.

Already I want to go through it again, and feel I will need to at least a couple more times to really understand a lot of the points made, and gain confidence with them.

But – whether it is overly-abrasive or not, whether you are deeply religious or not – if you will read just one book this year, I would strongly recommend you make it this.