Shelfology Book Pairing

by George R. R. Martin

In the latest installment of Daniel Abraham’s masterly adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s fantasy classic, the bonds of family and sanity are tested. At last, Catelyn Stark and her prisoner, Tyrion Lannister, have reached the Eyrie, the lofty citadel of Catelyn’s sister, Lysa, the grieving widow of Jon Arryn. Because Lysa believes that the Lannisters were responsible for her husband's death, Catelyn had thought to find an ally in this forbidding refuge. Instead the refuge seems more like a prison . . . and the “ally” a fearful and vindictive madwoman. Meanwhile, across the Narrow Sea, Daenerys Targaryen is also faced with a sibling’s madness—her brother, Viserys, impatient for the crown promised him by Khal Drogo, grows increasingly unable to hold his rage in check.

How Religion Poisons Everything

by Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens, described in the London Observer as “one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time” takes on his biggest subject yet–the increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world. In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s bestseller The End Of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.