"I don't believe in God, but I miss him"

 Nothing to be frightened of

by Julian Barnes. New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.

 

A late arrival on the scene of English writers pondering and arguing the existence or nonexistence of God. Barnes inclines toward the golden mean: "I don't believe in God," he writes, "but I miss Him." He was once more inclined to the atheism of Hitchens, Dawkins et al., but now, 62 years on, he admits to less certainty and "more awareness of ignorance," to say nothing of a growing understanding that the good times on this side of the grass are finite. Gentle and lucid—a welcome change from the polemical tone of so many books on the matter (or antimatter, if you like) of the big guy upstairs.

Bible salesman

Kirkus: The Lord works in humorously mysterious ways in this Southern picaresque teaming a jaded car thief and a young, impressionable Bible salesman.

Cultural battlefield

Giberson, Karl. (2008). Saving Darwin: how to be a Christian and believe in evolution. New York: HarperOne.

Library Journal: Giberson is an outstanding scientist and scholar who tries to unite the uncompromising correctness of creationism and intelligent design with proven scientific knowledge, thereby saving Darwin's evolution theory and re-examining its basic tenets from a Christian worldview.