4.10 avg rating — 15,876 ratings

"I re-read this book every year. It is incredible beyond its scope of an in-depth history of music in the twentieth century. It's about how music and art are important to society, and how they shape it. This is not "just a book for musicians." "

3.96 avg rating — 112,636 ratings

"Hitchens is a well-known and outspoken atheist, but for me the book is important because it succinctly lists the social and intellectual problems with religion in modern times. It says, effectively, two things: "The most dangerous thing that we can insist is that we must continue doing things as we have always done them, without question," and, "Religion is not having the effect we say we intend; we're doing it wrong, and we need to fix it.""

4.50 avg rating — 3,788,009 ratings

"One of my two personal favorites of the HP series. I love this book, particularly for its message to young adults: you are not too young to understand/believe that something is flawed, or to question what your elders tell you. You are also not too young to do something about it. In the same light, if you take matters into your own hands, you also take any responsibility for it. Of the seven books in the series, this one is (for me) the real one about emerging adulthood. "