The Good Book: A Humanist Bible

by A.C. Grayling (Editor/Contributor)

A book of extraordinary audacity from a remarkable thinker--a secular bible drawn from the wisdom and humanity in the world's great literature.

The Good Book is an inspired work of insight, wisdom, solace, and commentary on the human condition drawn from the world's great humanist traditions of thought and literature, Western and Eastern alike. Consciously following the design and presentation of the Bible, in the beauty of its language and its arrangement into short chapters and verses, acclaimed philosopher Anthony Grayling has crafted an epic stimulating narrative that ultimately reveals how life--a good life--should be lived.

Inspired by the thinking of Herodotus and Cicero, Confucious and Mencius, Montaigne, Bacon and so many others, Grayling has distilled the work of hundreds of authors and more than one thousand texts using the same techniques of editing, redaction, and adaptation that produced the holy books of the Judeo-Christian and Islamic religions. Their wit and yearnings, love and consolations are shaped into fourteen constituent parts that recall the Bible in structure--Genesis, Wisdom, Parables, Concord, Lamentations, Consolations, Sages, Songs, Histories, Proverbs, The Lawgiver, Acts, Epistles, and The Good. Opening with meditations on the origin and progress of the world and human life within it, Grayling then focuses on the questions of how life should be lived, how we relate to one another, and how vicissitudes are to be faced and joys appreciated.

For a secular age in which many find that religion no longer speaks to them, The Good Book is a literary tour de force--a book of life and practice invoking the greatest minds of the past in the perennial challenge of being human.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Religion, Atheism, History, Spirituality, Audiobook

597 pages, Hardcover

First published April 5, 2011

About the author

Anthony Clifford "A. C." Grayling is a British philosopher. In 2011 he founded and became the first Master of New College of the Humanities, an independent undergraduate college in London. Until June 2011, he was Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London, where he taught from 1991. He is also a supernumerary fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford.

He is a director and contributor at Prospect Magazine, as well as a Vice President of the British Humanist Association. His main academic interests lie in epistemology, metaphysics and philosophical logic. He has described himself as "a man of the left" and is associated in Britain with the new atheism movement, and is sometimes described as the 'Fifth Horseman of New Atheism'. He appears in the British media discussing philosophy.

Reviews

[Collin Duncan · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading this book off and on for the past 6 months I decided to start my first read through of it. I have to say that this book is one of the few that has gotten me incredibly exited and profoundly changed my outlook on life for the better.

I am forever the cynic, a complete pessimist. I often tend to gravitate toward literature, statistics, and news that just reinforces my belief that humanity is utterly flawed and completely horrible to the core. Consequently, it was refreshing to read this and see a bright, loving way of viewing the world. I describe myself as a transhumanist, so the philosophy is closely aligned with my own, but I would recommend this to anyone of any stripe.

First off, it is written by Grayling is probably one of my favorite modern philosophers. When I say written, I mean more or less compiled by, as the book is mostly made up of ideas gleaned and gathered from a luscious flock of historical figures, philosophers, and greats.

It is written and compiled in the eloquent tradition of a King James Bible which adds to its charm and makes it a delight to read. Each line is a delightful quip of wit and wisdom and the chapter/verse format makes it very easy to quickly reap a handful of useful knowledge. The book is written beautifully and compiled even more beautifully. Each section (book, if you wish to stick to Biblical nomenclature) is named intuitively and covers a broad range of topics. Starting your journey you encounter a Genesis account where scientific discovery and Newtonian intelligence takes the lead--not myth and fairy tales. You ease your way past a book of basic wisdoms and fundamentals of being a good person before encountering the back to back specials of Lamentations and Consolations: Two of a kind that explain sorrows and joys in a lovely manner. This is followed by books of parables, sages, and songs before trotting into the enormous book of "Histories." Nearly a third of the entire bible, this book teaches us life lessons from the people who learned them best and contains the wits of all the great sages compiled neatly, summarized gorgeously, by an elegant pen. Beyond this we have a titillating book of Proverbs dealing with personal life, before moving into a book of law: A stunning discourse on sociology and government and how it fits into our lives. The last several books are delightful, eloquent discourses that take all the knowledge and apply it in a loving fashion, giving you an ultimatum to live life to the fullest.

This is not a bible of angry patriarchs begrudging sinful wrongdoings. This is a bible for good people by good people. It doesn't concern itself with how or why we are moral beings or any of the other philosophical or scientific droll we are so used to debating, but rather it lifts up upon its shoulders the good in humanity and how we may attain it. Forget the gears and grease: This is a manual for living a healthy, loving, good and moral life. Five stars all the way around!

[Rinda Elwakil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is going to be a long long read..

24/10/2015
Day 1

أصبح من عاداتي الصباحية قراءة القليل من هذا الكتاب
الإنسانية لا دين لها
أن تكون ذا خلق اختيارك وحدك

:)

[Preston Page]

This 700 page book is written in the same format as the Bible with the modern numbering of sections of the bible. While the title listed in the add is "The Good Book: A Secular Bible," The title appearing on my copies are, "The Good Book: A Humanist Bible." The author states his reasons for the book in the first section of the book entitled, ‘Epistle to the Reader.” He states in this epistle that the reader, “becomes more than they were before,” and that none should come to harm.

The books chapters are: Genesis, Wisdom, Parables, Concord, Lamentations, Consolations, Sages, Songs, Histories, Proverbs, The Lawgiver, Acts, Epistles, and The Good.

Genesis opens with, “In the garden stands a tree.” The chapter describes in very general terms how the universe is and our place in it and the place of science in the universe and our lives. One of my favorites in Genesis was Chapter 13.13 “We are not to ignore the evidence of experiments for the sake of dreams and fictions of our own devising;”

[Al Bità · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a sense this book is a kind of benchmark. It encapsulates many excellent examples of secular norms and values which could very well stand for true and excellent human values suitable for any walk of life, without succumbing to the usually more punitive values espoused by many religions. Grayling's sources are many and varied, and global in their extent. There are no gods here, nor angels and/or demons: just human beings, offering advice and interpretations about our human existence and how to deal with it in human terms.

Grayling uses a style and format which mimics the so-called sacred books of other religions, often more of less randomly splitting up the texts into chapters and neat verses — a style I personally did not respond to readily, especially in the more narrative Histories and Acts sections, for example. I found this approach continuously interrupted the flow of the stories, and created a kind of compulsive drive which I think could have been tempered by the judicious addition of more headings to separate more or less distinct sections. It also made me realise how traditional Bibles, by adopting this (very late) method of accessing their writings, can make individual verses take on more 'significance' than they would normally justify. Personally, I would also have preferred a more annotated text as well, and I believe the book would benefit with a comprehensive Index of subjects and subject matters for easier access. Perhaps these are things future editors could furnish…

Regardless, there are wonderful descriptions of life and living on earth, of tender consolations, of songs of joy and sadness, of solid advice, on dealing with adversities, on being, well, human. The sad part of all of this, however, is that, just like any similar book, whether religious or not, which provides such wisdom and understanding, it will not be read by the many (who should read it, but find it 'boring') but rather by a few dedicated persons who have meditated on life and understand its beauty and sadness, and can respond to the writings of global writers on how to live a good life. The latter, of course, do not need a book such as this: they live it.

But it doesn't matter. The real benefit of this work lies in its existence. When religiously minded people who believe (and constantly refer to that belief in their diatribes against Atheists, for example) that there can be no sense of good and evil, no morality and no good life without their (or another type of) religion, one can now reply quite calmly: 'Read Grayling's "The Good Book".'

[Jennifer Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the book is structured like The Bible, this may take me a while to read, but I'm enjoying the eloquent language and mediations on life and wisdom I have read thus far. A couple verses I particularly appreciated are:

"The wise would rather be least among the best than first among the worst: As they have said, be rather a tail to a lion than a head to a jackal."

"Passion may offer a quickened sense of life, may give the ecstasy and the sorrow of love...Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire for beauty, the love of art, the desire for knowledge for its own sake and the sake of human good has most. To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life."

[Denise]

A philosophy mash up. I don't mind the scripture feel, however, not knowing who said what, when, and under what historical context, is slightly annoying. Also happens to be one of my complaints about religious scripture.

Thus far, at Lamentations. I am enjoying the writing with one caveat. From my personal point of view, with a rewrite, it would be nice to have less male centric vocabulary. It is already being taken out of context and distanced from its authors, why not update the language to be more gender inclusive? For a Humanist bible, as a female, I am feeling a little left out.

Favorite Quotes:

*Genesis 2:1 Those who first set themselves to discover nature's secrets and designs, fearlessly opposing mankind's early ignorance, deserve our praise;

13:1 Let us admit no more causes of natural things than are both true and sufficient to explain what we see.

*Wisdom is my favorite section thus far:
1:17 The wise are hard to anger and easy to appease.

2:7 The wise see others with a liberal eye, not begrudging their good, neither wishing them ill.

2:13-14 Hope is the armour of the wise, kindness their weapon, courage their mount; And the destination of all their journeys is understanding.

4:2 The beginning of wisdom is the question, the end of wisdom is acceptance;

4:5 To be wise is to know when to speak, and when to be silent.

4:11-13 No one came to be wise who did not sometimes fail; No one came to be wise who did not know how to revise an opinion. The wise change their minds when facts and experience so demand. The fool either does not hear or does not heed.

6:1 The meditation of the wise man is a meditation on life, not on death.

6:6 Emotion is bad if it hinders the mind from thinking. An emotion that opens the mind to contemplate several aspects of things at once is better than one that fixes thought to an obsession.

6:19 The wise call things good when they enhance the activity of life and bring benefit;

8:3 But the evil of our own death is not death itself; it is the fear of death that is evil. To be free of the fear of one's own death is to be free indeed.

11:4 With every accident, ask yourself what abilities you have for making a proper use of it.

12:4-5 You are an actor in a drama, of which the author is jointly you and matters beyond your control. Thus say to yourself, 'Whatever happens, it is in my control to derive advantage from it, even if only to learn how to bear misfortune.'

12:12 When, therefore, anyone provokes you, be assured that it is your own opinion which provokes you.

17:2 Be a listener, speak what is necessary, remember few words are better than many.

22:11 And the great lesson that the end of each day teaches is that wisdom and the freedom it brings must daily be won anew.

How long will you delay to be wise?

*Parables 15:3 The teacher knows he has succeeded when the pupil no longer needs him.

22:15 'And I have heard it said,' Philologus replied, 'that study is like husbandry, in which we till the ground and sow the seed to reap thereafter;

*Lamentations 10:30-32 I shall be told philosophy is comfortless, because it speaks the truth; and people prefer illusions. Go to the illusionists, then, and leave philosophers in peace! At any rate, do not ask us to accommodate our doctrines to your hopes. That is what those rascals of illusion will do for you. Ask them for any doctrine you please, and you will get it.

[Thomas Quinn · Rating 1 out of 5]

A.C. Grayling tries exhaustively to bring biblical richness to the cause of secular philosophy--a laudable goal. But even to this skeptic, his book is dry and sleep-inducing. It's too self-consciously biblical in flavor and structure, and it uses tales from ancient Athens as moral fables akin to those in the Old Testament. Even chapter headings have names like "Genesis, Wisdom, Parables, Lamentations, Proverbs", etc. I liked perusing through the Proverbs. But the overall project, despite it's wide ranging sources of inspiration, comes off as pretty lame stuff. It feels like a bland collection of Confucian aphorisms. It doesn't work as a trove of secular wisdom, at least not for me. A good effort for the right causes. But writing a Humanist Bible requires getting away from trying to replicate the Bible's literary methods.

[Crawford · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Good Book: a secular Bible

AC Grayling

Reviewed By Lloyd Geering | Published NZ Listener on June 27, 2011

By accident, I recently heard AC Grayling being interviewed on Radio New Zealand National’s Saturday Morning with Kim Hill. Grayling holds a chair of philosophy at Birkbeck College in London and is president of the British Humanist Association. I warmed to what he said because I agree with his assertion that the humanist tradition has a long, widespread and noble history. To demonstrate this, he has scoured more than a thousand texts from the past, representing both Western and Eastern traditions, and distilled their insights into an anthology he calls The Good Book: A Secular Bible.

Having already been asked to review the book, I all the more eagerly looked forward to receiving it. But on its arrival my heart sank as I skimmed through its pages. Was there any need to ape the Bible right down to its double columns and ­numbered verses? Unfortunately, these two features of most versions of the English Bible impede the flow of the text and thus frustrate the reader. After all, the now familiar versification of the Bible is a very late intrusion that was introduced for study purposes. Grayling should have known from his diligent search for humanist wisdom that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”.

The Good Book is presented in 14 parts, some with titles intended to echo or evoke ­biblical counterparts: we find, for example, “Genesis”, “Lamentations”, “Songs”, “Histories”, “Proverbs”, “Acts” and “Epistles”. Although “Histories” (which amounts to a third of the book) is readily recognisable as a heavily edited version of The Histories of the Greek historian Herodotus, Grayling never acknowledges his sources – except for, on the very last page, a list of 124 names from Aeschylus to Xenophon (including Grayling!).

If Grayling’s intent was to show that humanist thinking was present among the ancients, he would have done better to reveal his sources. For many wise sayings, we need to know both who said them and the context in which they
originated to appreciate them. When bundled together (as they are here), they often lose their sharp edge and even, occasionally, their significance. The result is that most of The Good Book reads like a surprisingly uniform succession of one-liners that too often strike one as bland or even trite.

Perhaps the best of The Good Book is the last and shortest section – the one called simply “The Good”. Some of the observations about life collected here manifest such a freshness of expression that one cannot help but wonder whether they were composed by the author himself.

Grayling’s prejudice against anything traditionally religious has prevented him from using the humanist elements in the Bible. Discerning readers will find its “Proverbs” and “Ecclesiastes” superior to most of what we have in The Good Book.

As I tried to show in my recent book Such is Life! A Close Encounter with Ecclesiastes, the thoughts of that ancient thinker are remarkably like those of humanists in the 21st century.

Although I happen to share much of Grayling’s humanist standpoint, I long ago learnt to read the Bible for what it is. It is not a set of divine revelations from a superhuman source, but a diverse collection of legends, myths, historical stories, prophetic oracles and letters – all written by fallible and sometimes prejudiced people.

Yet even when the Bible is read as the words of men rather than the Word of God, it still remains a much richer compendium of wisdom than this rigidly secular anthology. Indeed, Grayling may have done the humanist movement a real disservice by assembling a “bible” that makes humanism appear drab, uninteresting and even boring. When set alongside The Good Book, the Bible can be interesting and even inspiring. Even more important, of course, is the Bible’s value as an irreplaceable resource for understanding our cultural origins.

URL to article: http://www.listener.co.nz/culture/boo...

[P.M. Bradshaw · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not like it. To write an alternative to the Bible, and then write it in a pretentious bible-like format seemed self-defeating from the get-go.

Is Mr. Grayling intelligent?
Yes.
Is he well-versed in literature?
Yes.
Is this book too long and boring?
Yes.

There are many, many books on Humanism.
This is not one I would suggest to people.

[Shaeda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've only read the first few pages so far (Genesis) and the description of how things began (scientifically) is awesome. Highly recommended.

[Hiram Crespo · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s difficult to do a fair and complete review of a book that will likely take a lifetime to read and is not meant to be read in one sitting or within one week or one month even. But the Good Book deserves some attention, as it constitutes a modern attempt to produce a scripture that fits within naturalist philosophy and, in some ways, continues the work of Epicurus, Lucretius and other great philosophers of antiquity.

The basic idea of the Good Book is that it celebrates the format of scripture as a means to transmit wisdom and tradition. It imitates the editorial style of the Judeo-Christian Bible and of the Qur’an, but is entirely secular and makes no mention of God. It is, in essence, a philosopher’s Bible. It reads like scripture and contains the philosophical books of Genesis, Wisdom, Parables, Concord, Lamentations, Consolations, Sages, Songs, Histories, Proverbs, The Lawgiver, Acts, Epistles, and The Good.

In it is gathered the wisdom of countless sages of humanity’s history. Like with the Bible, no mention is made of the sources and authors that inspire each verse and chapter and the content is mixed together in such a way that it’s better to simply read the Good Book as scripture without worrying too much about sources and other academic concerns. Similarly, it lends itself for use as liturgy to mark rites of passage, weddings, funerals and so on, as with other scriptures.

The Good Book begins, as it should, with a natural account of the beginnings. This one is not as long as Lucretius' De Rerum Natura, of course, and is shorter than the Biblical book of Genesis. It reiterates important Epicurean adages like “nothing comes from nothing” (Gen. 4:10), in chapter five explains how atoms recombine to form many things in a manner very reminiscent of Lucretius, and even includes praise for atomism:

“The first inquirers named nature’s elements atoms, matter, seeds, primal bodies, and understood that they are coeval with the world; They saw that nothing comes from nothing, so that discovering the elements reveals how the things of nature exist and evolve. Fear holds dominion over people when they understand little, and need simple stories and legends to comfort and explain; But legends and the ignorance that give them birth are a house of limitation and darkness. Knowledge is freedom, freedom from ignorance and its offspring fear; knowledge is light and liberation.”

- Genesis 2:7-11

Later, we find mention of the need for a Canon (an “aid” to reason) and a warning against false philosophy :

“It follows that the entire fabric of human reason employed in the inquisition of nature, is badly built up, like a great structure lacking foundations. For while people are occupied in admiring and applauding the false powers of the mind, they pass by and throw away its true powers which, if supplied with proper aids, and if content to wait upon nature instead of vainly affecting to overrule her, are within its reach. Such is the way to truth and the advancement of understanding“

- Genesis 14:9-12

Other instances where Epicurean teachings resonate with the Good Book are the mention in Consolations 1:19 that friends are irreplaceable; Cons. 2:2 later advises the grateful rememberance of those who have passed. Cons. 1:5 also praises autarchy and mocks Fortuna, saying “Your wisdom consists in this, that you look upon yourself as self-sufficing, and regard the accidents of life as powerless to affect your virtue“. And there’s this advise against bad association:

Who lies down with dogs will rise with fleas. - Proverbs 34:8

There are many more passages that resonate with Epicurean teaching so that, even if it’s not a specifically Epicurean scripture, it can still be useful in the study and promotion Epicurean cultural memes and doctrines.

The Good Book is, as you may well imagine, not for everyone. It's not for use in academia or for people who are obsessed with finding or citing the ultimate sources of the ideas and proverbs contained in the Good Book. It’s likely to appeal to people who love reading, who enjoy philosophy and who hold wisdom traditions in very high regard. It also would be of use to Humanist chaplains and people involved in the promotion of cultural memes in social media.

[Bastiaan Koster · Rating 4 out of 5]

The current meaning of a "Bible" is "the handbook of life". Your life would change for the better after reading and studying the Bible. At many points, the Tenach and Christian scriptures have failed at being a Bible. Therefore, I think a new version is needed.

Compared to the original Bible, this book is a serious upgrade. I'm glad I bought it.

However, The Good Book isn't perfect. There are issues with it.

Style:
It is written in the style of the Bible and other classical texts. This is a style not everyone will enjoy. I like it, though.

History section:
As in the original, the History part is very long and detailed without an obvious purpose.

Bias towards ancient Greece and Rome:
Most named people in the book are from ancient Greece and Rome. I think it should feature sages from all over the world and all ages.

[Clare · Rating 1 out of 5]

A rather bland compendium of decontextualised and deliberately unreferenced quotations and platitudes with pretentions to providing a kind of alternative 'bible' for atheists of the British liberal ilk. As a collection of what the author claims to be great 'non-religious' wisdom of the ages (with a strong preponderance of Ancient Greek and Roman material) it is pretty dull and ordinary. A demonstration that historical context is of the essence.

[Saniac · Rating 2 out of 5]

I heard an interview with Grayling on the radio and the book sounded great. Was disappointed to find that it's not an anthology of the sources but essentially a ground up rewrite, with no references back to the originals. Sorry I didn't get it out from the library first before buying it.

[Dmi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well there is some really good stuff in it, but also a lot of Greek and Roman history. There are other books which describe it more in depth, and makes you feel the book is "all over the place", which to me blurred the useful lessons a bit

[Sherry Hoppmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was indeed a good book. As with the Bible, I read it in stages. I now keep it nearby for reference. It has much to offer for words on any subject, with an ethos that I can embrace.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book to read for a mediation. Grayling is considered the velvet atheist.

[Block Beard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful resource. I'll be returning to it again and again.

[Onyango Makagutu · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book indeed

[Liz Mistry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finding myself more and more dipping into books for a little bit of encouragement, positivity and life lessons and this book allows just that.
A good secular reference book for those who need inspiring but don't want to look to religion for that.

[R Nair · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is structured to mimic the Judeo-Christian Bible in style and language. This although a laudable effort, especially considering the richness of text used to replicate the scriptures in a secular format, also makes it difficult to follow at times. Additionally the lack of footnotes and references might be frustrating if the text is seen as a scholarly effort. However, once the book is read simply for the sheer pleasure of reading philosophy without worrying about where the ideas have been taken from, the experience becomes a lot more enjoyable.

[Adam Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I’m reading The Good Book by A.C. Grayling—a self-described “humanist Bible”—and I’ve got mixed but mostly positive feelings. Let’s be clear: this isn’t a takedown of religion, and it’s not trying to be one. It’s an attempt to reconstruct what a wisdom tradition might look like if we threw out the supernatural scaffolding and just focused on what humans have learned, observed, and written over the millennia.

Think of it as what you’d get if Ecclesiastes and Marcus Aurelius raised a child together in a library full of Enlightenment philosophers.

The book is structured like a religious text—chapters, verses, aphorisms, meditations. That alone is clever. It invites a kind of reverence, or at least careful reading, but not for some imagined god—it’s reverence for reason, for thought, for our collective human struggle to make sense of things. And I respect that. In fact, I love the idea of reclaiming the format of the Bible while refusing to let it carry the weight of divine authority.

That said, I wouldn't hand this to someone who's actively deconstructing unless they already have one foot out the theological door. There’s no apologetic sparring here, no section titled “Why God Doesn’t Exist.” It’s more like: Okay, let’s say there is no God—now what? How do we live? What matters? What wisdom can we still glean?

And on that front, the book delivers. Some parts are genuinely beautiful, even moving. It draws on a wide range of sources—from Confucius to Darwin to Montaigne—but distills them into a coherent voice. If I had a critique, it’s that sometimes it feels a bit too polished. A bit too… curated. There’s a sterile tone that creeps in occasionally, like an academic trying to do poetry. That said, I’d still rather have that than another theologian pretending ancient goat herders were divine mouthpieces.

For those of us who’ve left religion but still hunger for something—a shared vocabulary, a guide that doesn’t insult our intelligence or demand belief in magic—this book is a solid step in that direction. It’s not scripture. It’s not meant to be. It’s an invitation to think and to feel without deferring to a celestial authority. That alone makes it worth reading.

[Eric Wurm · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expected this book to be a humanist book that provided a guide for living. It is that, but in Biblical form. It has parables and historical narratives like the Bible. If you're looking for a book in Biblical form, this is for you.

This book is exactly what it says it is, a Humanist bible. A.C.Grayling has produced much better works and I view him as a great philosophical writer. This book mirrors in form the writing in the Bible, and it drones on as such. I would rather have the author have offered a guide for living for humanists. This can be drawn from the text, but it is lengthy and unnecessarily so. This book would have been better if it had been written in a format that had guided a humanist in life and compared it to a Biblical life.

[Amir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful peice of literature, it set me down a path of humanist philosophy. I read this at a time where I let go of religious lessons and was scared of what the world might be, but this helped me figure out basic lessons of wisdom, and coping with harsh realities. Ive learned many lessons about friendship, death, and morality. This book has honestly set my life towards a positive direction of self discovery and contemplation.
I must say though, it is a bit long, and you can skip many chapters which you find irrelevant, read this as a manual, pick out what's useful and leave off what you dont need.

[Ian Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been pecking away at this for some time. It's certainly polarizing for its intended audience, but I liked it a great deal. Essentially, it presents lessons from the ancient world woven together by theme. The readings are heavy on Greece, China & Rome. For those who enjoy such an aesthetic, a marvelous book.

[Paulo Reimann · Rating 1 out of 5]

Feels like the book has no continuance. Boring, complex, unexplained, cocky. I am not criticizing if it is all about atheist or not. The book is boring. Period.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 1 out of 5]

They were a warlike people is one of my all-time favorite British expressions when used against somebody not from the West. This book used that expression at least twice against those dreaded people not of the West.

All the advice in this book is for men; a woman might have been mentioned once when the man said his greatest fault was trusting a woman with a secret, or when the two sons died getting their mother to the temple on time.

The author said that story about the sons dying for their mother twice. He also was needlessly redundant with other stories.

The author mentioned how grateful that he was that the Greeks won its war against Persia since the East is inferior and that would have been bad for men of today since men of the West matter most of all.

This book is a clunker. I did read it all. It never improved from its myopic certainty in its own righteousness. The book contained a creepy lack of awareness in its ethnocentric assumptions as it asserted its confidence in the true, the good and the beautiful.

[Brian Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I appreciated the sentiment and most content, the lack of source citations for the individual writings was frustrating. I tried googling select quotes a number of times with limited success. I would have liked to have easy access to the source material. Also, the length of the histories seemed outsized compared to the other types of writings selected. I realize that this format mimics the bible itself well, but most readers of the bible that I know use bibles with footnotes and cross references. And i shudder to say that I would have liked to see the versification which is available in standard editions of most of the selections.

[Chris Marks · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. One doesn't necessarily expect a compelling narrative in such a book, but this is almost completely unreadable. Unnecessarily redundant and awkwardly voiced and formatted, it seems more concerned with looking, sounding, and feeling biblical than anything else. I can anticipate browsing this from time-to-time (I bought it, unfortunately) as a way to jumpstart my thinking on some subject (thus the generous two stars). However, even this is made difficult by organization into chapters with less than helpful titles (e.g., "Wisdom", "Concord", or "Sages") and lack of an index. One would do better by engaging with Grayling's (inadequately cited) source materials.

[Doram Jacoby · Rating 1 out of 5]

I haven't actually finished this book but have read a number of chapters (around 10%).
As a humanist I was hoping to connect with this book but, despite being very clever and with lots of interesting points, I found the book itself extremely boring and it felt forced, pretentious and condescending.

Regretfully, I will not recommend it to anyone as there are much more interesting books on the subject of Humanism.