200s for the non-religious?

A discussion in another thread made me wonder: does anyone have suggestions for books in the 200s that would appeal to people who aren't religious, or who just aren't Christian? I'd imagine there must be some books that are pretty much history, and some that are critical of religious ideas, and plenty of other ones that somehow have broader appeal.

Zoe, What a great question! Absolutely yes. I'm going to try to give this some thought but right off the bat i'd say no one could make a mistake reading C S Lewis, usually Dewey'd in 200's. Definitely a thinking man's/woman's author. JM

Zoe I just started poking around here and now I see where your coming from. LOUD APPLAUSE. A great idea for widening one's horizons. I'm part of Bookmarks Subscribers group(at GoodReads) so have been reading lots of great fiction lately but really appreciate well-written non-fiction as well.. BookMarksmagazine.com also rates by genre including history, science, etc. Check that out for some good leads. I love Bookmarks. Anyway to get back to your 200's question. I'm currently setting up a church library using LT but we have to massage Dewey a little to make things fit. How do you grab your DD#'s? Must they be based on LT's Dewey's?

I look for the numbers on LT first, but if they're not there, I've found that it's pretty effective just googling the title accompanied by the phrase "Dewey Decimal". I'm not sure how efficient that would be if you're doing it for a large number of books, though.

I hope you're enjoying LT so far!

2>

As the person who prompted Zoe's question:

Christian apologists like C.S. Lewis do not qualify as books of interest to someone who is not Christian and has no interest in reading about Christianity. I had enough Christianity rammed down my throat as a child -- no matter how well-written it is, I don't need more books about how wonderful it is, thanks all the same. I'll happily leave most of the 200s empty rather than read that.

(I have two 200s read and one -- Letter to a Christian Nation -- on my TBR. I'm perfectly happy to stop there. It was the 200s that kept me from this challenge for so long, and only the thought that I can customize my own challenge and leave them empty let me decide to start doing the rest.)

I'm hoping to do as much as I can with books about stuff that's safely in the past. Reading about what Waldensians believed or how medieval popes managed their finances or the sociopolitics of Byzantine iconoclasm (or whatever I can actually come up with - I read one on the physical form of medieval monasteries, for example) probably won't make my skin crawl very much. There's not usually a lot of excitement for the general reader in this, though.

6>

Now that's actually a reasonable suggestion.

>6 E59F: Yeah, that's the kind I was thinking of when I mentioned books that are mostly just history. I'm sure there are some that are a bit broader--maybe medieval popes in general, not just their finances?

I'm interested in finding books like this for myself too, though I'm currently not so far along in the challenge that I can't make progress just by reading what I'd read anyway.

8: I'm sure there are some that are a bit broader--maybe medieval popes in general, not just their finances?

Actually, I guess the finances example wasn't such a good idea, because I do have a book on the administrative practices of medieval monasteries and I just checked - it's in 944 (history of France). I also have a book that sociologically models conversion to Islam in the Middle Ages, and that's in 909 (world history). So in theory yes, but it looks like the more general nonreligious content there is, the more likely the book is to be placed in the 900s rather than the 200s.

The other problem with broader topics is that the less arcane it is, the less it is likely to be safely in the past ;)

I was hoping The pope's daughter was going to be in the 200s but alas, it is 945. I was looking forward to that one at some point in my life.

Well, just out of curiousity, I tried a tagmash of popes, history. There are some 200s in there--apparently popes fall under 262. A couple of examples from the list:
The Bad Popes. From one user review: "Like reading a sleaze magazine covering several centuries. I loved it!" (admittedly not the sort of praise I'd usually look for, but at least it doesn't seem overly religious)
Papal Sin. User review: "To a non-Catholic, Papal Sin is educational and fascinating. To a devote (sic) Catholic who believes in the infallibility of the Pope, this book is likely blasphemous."

And under 272, Persecutions in Church History, there are books about the Inquisition, like Inquisition: The Reign of Fear. I'm sure there's also plenty of readable stuff in 215, Science and Religion. I'm going to add Religion and Science, 400 B.C. to A.D. 1550 to my TBR list even if it doesn't end up counting toward the challenge (it mostly seems to be listed as 509). Religion and Science, 1450-1900: From Copernicus to Darwin seems to fall under 261.

I read portions of the Summa Theologica (which falls under 230) for history/philosophy this year, and found it rather interesting. It's not exactly light reading but if you are interested in philosophy it's great to ponder the arguments he makes, even if you find yourself disagreeing with his conclusions. I probably wouldn't read it straight through for fun but if other versions of Aquinas' stuff fall under 230 then I recommend something of the sort (a commentary on his work? a concise version?) to fill that category.

271--Religious orders in church history: Virgins of Venice. This is about religious orders in Venice during the Renaissance, and is really a historical book more than a religious book. It discusses the interaction between the convents, the government, and upper-class society and does not really delve into religious beliefs. I thought it provided an interesting picture of Venetian society at that time.

296--Judaism: Thirteen and a Day. I'm not Jewish, and I enjoyed this. It's about bar and bat mitzvahs and is written in a journalistic style.

From my TBR list:

200--The Devil is a Gentleman: Exploring America's Religious Fringe
273--The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller
289--Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

I second Under the Banner of Heaven - really well written about fundamentalist mormons

Good question! There is lots of good stuff in the 200 shelves. I third the recommendation of Under the Banner of Heaven. From my library I recommend these non-Christian books:

The End of Faith by Sam Harris
The Jesuit and the Incas; The extraordinary life of Padre Blas Valera (history, languages and cultures of the Spanish and Portuguese worlds), by Sabine Hyland (I'm surprised this is here--it's a history book with a great mystery. Definitely recommended).
The Missionary Position; Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, by Christopher Hitchens
Hildegard of Bingen; the Woman of Her Age, by Fiona Maddocks (more of a medieval biography than anything else)
the Crisis of Islam; Holy War and Unholy Terror, by Bernard Lewis
The Serpent and the Rainbow, by Wade Davis

The Serpent and the Rainbow was great. The movie was not even remotely about the book so don't let that put you off. I'm sure he was probably sick over Hollywood turning his book into a zombie flick.

I agree about that movie. I was stunned by how they changed it.

I think The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible is a pretty entertaining book (220) for a non-preachy, relatively light-hearted look at Christianity.

And Santeria: The Beliefs and Rituals of a Growing Religion in America is a pretty fascinating one of the non-Christian variety (299)

If you really don't care for Christianity, most of the atheist literature seems to be in the 200's as well.

Nickelini, I'm going to have to read what Hitchens has to say about Mother Teresa. Especially considering her loss of faith towards the end of her life.

fundevogel -- I thought the Mother Teresa book was great, and it's only 90-something pages long. A very quick read. I was never a fan of hers anyway, but if you are you might not want to read this one.

I'm not religious, I just heard a couple months back that she had some letters or diaries or something like that where she very plainly said she could no longer feel God...and that when she told her confessor he told her that it was a virtue or some such nonsense.

If you're looking to stick to the historical past, here are some suggestions:

230- The Puritan Way of Death by David Stannard- how Puritans thought about death and buried their dead.
269- Rebecca’s Revival by Jon Sensbach- story of an enslaved woman who becomes an evangelical missionary in the wake of slave uprising in the 18th c. Caribbean. Very readable.
282- Mohawk Saint by Allan Greer- story of a Mohawk woman in 17th c. Canada who gained notoriety in a Catholic mission.
286- Disorderly Women by Susan Juster-rabble rousin' evangelical women during the American Revolution, fighting for liberty and all that.

Here's a few more I found in my library:

232- American Jesus: How the Son of God became a National Icon by Stephen Prothero- this book is not a celebration of Christianity (even though the title sounds that way)- it's a history book looking at how different American cultures and groups have used the image of Jesus- including Jesus the boxer, Jesus the CEO, and Jesus the Black Power revolutionary.

299- there's loads of books on Native American religion in this category- I definitely recommend doing some general searches

277- The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in Nineteenth Century America by Paul Johnson and Sean Wilentz- history of a crazy cult in 1830s NYC- lots of wife swapping and a dude who thinks he's Jesus. Lots of fun. This book reads very nicely.

261- Whitebread Protestants: Food and Religion in American Culture- a look at the role of food in American religious life.

282- Chasing Grace by Martha Manning- memoir of a woman who chose to leave the Catholic Church.

You might also want to have a look at Anne Lamott's autobiographies (Traveling Mercies, Plan B, Grace Eventually). Lamott is Christian, but she's also a swearing, Bush-hating, feminist, liberal, etc. She's also hilarious. I'm not at all religious, and it took a leap of faith (hah!) for me to read her, but I've torn through every one of her books.

Wow, thanks for those suggestions! This category is suddenly looking a whole lot more promising :)

23>

Thanks! Whitebread Protestants looks promising, that's the culture I grew up in, after all (and wow, is the touchstone you get if you leave off the "s" on Protestants ever different!). I think I've seen American Jesus on the shelf at my (Unitarian) church, so that's unlikely to be objectionably Christian either. I've put both of those on my "investigate further" list.

(I already have a 299 on my TBR).

_Zoe_'s right, this is looking much less scary. I still don't think I'll ever get all 10 top-level 200s, but getting 5 or 6 of them is starting to seem like a reasonable goal.

I have a list of books that I might want to read for each category, and I've gone through that to look for books responsive to this question. I haven't read these, so I'm not vouching for them--they're just books in the 200s that look readable and potentially appealing for a non-religious person.

201--Religious mythology, etc.: The Literary Remains of the Late Henry James. I've taken a look at this on Google books, and it seems more like a philosophy book than a religious book. It's long.

211--Concepts of God: Honest Doubt: Essays on Atheism in a Believing Society

215--Science & Religion: How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God. This is about theories on why people believe in some kind of higher being (not from a religious viewpoint but as a societal phenomenon).

221--Old Testament: Moses and Monotheism. Description from Amazon: "Freud's speculations on various aspects of religion where he explains various characteristics of the Jews in their relations with the Christians."

231--God: Monkey Girl. This is about the creationism debate and the battles over what to teach in public schools.

235--Spiritual beings: Magnificent Corpses. I bought this recently. It looks like a kind of travel story--the author goes all over Europe looking at the relics of saints and tells the weird stories of the saints. I'm Methodist--we don't do this kind of thing--so this appeals to me as a travel/history book.

281--Early church and Eastern churches: Why Angels Fall. This is a history of the Eastern Orthodox Church. It looks like it's written from a journalistic perspective.

200: from the unthinkable to the unavoidable: american christian and jewish scholars encounter the holocaust carol rittner
201: the wondering brain: thinking about religion with and beyond cognitive neuroscience kelly bulkeley
210: all men are brothers mohandas k. gandhi
220: the bible as english literature john hays gardiner
220: violence, utopia and the kingdom of god: fantasy and ideology in the bible george aichele
225: misquoting jesus: the story behind who changed the bible and why bart ehrman
230: sexism and god talk rosemary radford reuter
232: the politics of jesus: rediscovering the true revolutionary nature of jesus' teachings and how they have been corrupted obery hendricks
232: jesus and buddha: the parallel sayings marcus borg
241: anger robert thurman
241: envy joseph epstein
241: gluttony francine prose
241: pride michael eric dyson
248: rich christians in an age of hunger ronald sider
254: selling jesus: what's wrong with marketing the church douglas webster
261: the misunderstood jew amy-jill levine
261: progressive christians speak: a different voice on faith and politics
267: loaves and fishes dorothy day
270: confessions augustine
270: subversive orthodoxy: outlaws, revolutionaries, and other christians in disguise robert inchausti
273: forbidden religion: suppressed heresies of the west j. douglas kenyon
273: the lost religion of jesus: simple living and nonviolence in early christianity keith akers
277: the irresistible revolution: living as an ordinary radical shane claiborn
284: the scandal of the evangelical mind mark noll

232: The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man
232: Deconstructing Jesus

It looks like this has turned into a general "books in the 200s" thread. Which is fine, but it makes it a lot harder for me to pick out which one are actually going to be palatable for a recovering Christian.

See #27--I tried to list only the ones responsive to the specific question in this thread. It looks like the ones in #29 might also be appealing to a non-Christian/skeptic.

#16 are also non-Christian.

It was specifically #29 I was thinking of in #30 -- certainly Augustine's Confessions are pretty explicitly Christian, and a lot of the others look suspicious as well.

(assuming lorax meant #28 from the reference to augustine)

i tried to include only books that might have some historical or literary value for non-christians

i considered leaving the augustine off of the list (for obvious reasons) but as it was on my m.a. exam reading list (comparative literature) it gave the impression of having been widely embraced as an important autobiography

as for the other biographical books i chose (day & claiborn) i hoped that it would be more interesting for a non-christian (even an anti-christian (which literally means "like the anti-christ"--not what i mean though)) to read a book about a christian feeding the poor and/ or going to iraq to protest the war in iraq than to read, say, some of the books i am ashamed of having purchased during some essays i wrote about the prosperity gospel in grad school (& am afraid to list on bookmooch because of the possibility that they may be used for other than academic research, terribly judgmental & reactionary as that is):

what if america were a christian nation again? d. james kennedy

or

becoming a millionaire god's way c. thomas anderson

(which i see now are both ineligible for being listed as "322: relation of state to organized groups" and "332: financial economics" respectively--i hope you understand my thinking anyway)

in short, i tried to avoid books that referred to christians in either the second- or the first-person plural

(including such favorites as brennan manning's the ragamuffin gospel (248) & the importance of being foolish: how to think like jesus (248) & tony campolo's red letter christians (277) & following jesus without embarrassing god (248))

& tried to consider phoenix affirmation # 8 in my selection process:

(from http://www.crosswalkamerica.org/?tabid=56)

"We affirm that the Path of Jesus is found where Christ’s followers love those who consider them their enemies as much as they love themselves, striving humbly to embody the “fruits of the Spirit”: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

We confess that we have moved away from this Path when we have promoted a notion that people of faith are morally or ethically superior to those without faith."

i'm sorry if some or all of my selections failed to meet your requirements but i hope someone else might find them to be of interest

Have fun, everyone. I'm done with this thread. I should have known it would attract proselytizers sooner or later.

I should add:

Thanks to everyone who understood the nature of the request and provided useful and interesting suggestions.

i am truly sorry for having offended you

i realize that many people cannot hear someone say "i am a christian" without hearing "you should be one too" which is something that i would never say to anyone

i would say "some people (myself included) believe in god & other people don't; some people believe that this is an important distinction & other people (myself included) believe that it is a 'narcissism of minor differences'"

i hope we can sluff it off in our next epistemological shift

it rattles around inside of me

30>
As an atheist I'm not interested in reading anything preachy either, but I am interested in religion in general and Christianity specifically since it's such a powerful force in my country. I'm tacking up my reading list which I think is a combination of critical and academic works (with the exception of the exorcism books, but they just sounded interesting). I can't vouch for their readability but I'm pretty sure none of these attempt to sell Jesus.

Of course if you just don't want to read about Christianity in any form you're probably SOL in most of the 200's.

200 - God is Not Great*
211 - The God Delusion
211 - Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects*
220 - The Secret Origins of the Bible
221 - Harlot by the Side of the Road
222 - Who Wrote the Bible?*
225 - The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture
228 - A History of the End of the World
229 - Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
231 - Looking for a Miracle skeptical look at miracles
231 - The Counter Creatio​nism Handbook
248 - Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake-Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia
261 - I Had to Say Something: The Art of Ted Haggard's Fall
264 - An Exorcist Tells His Story and An Exorcist: More Stories these are probably Catholic but I'm expecting they'll be more interesting than preachy
272 - The Grand Inquisitor's Manual: A History of Terror in the Name of God

As for 200's I've actually read, I enjoyed The Year of Living Biblically which was pretty humorous and written by an agnostic and advise you avoid Mere Christianity and Blue Like Jazz.

* Since my original post I have read these books, you can see my thoughts on them in post #53.

You know, you don't have to agree with a book to read it! This would be a fine occasion to take some important often-referenced Christian text and read it with critical scrutiny: then you'll understand more, you'll see slightly better through Christian rhetoric and you'll be able to meet them eye to eye in debate and make better arguments in language that they understand.

236 - Have a Nice Doomsday: Why Millions of Americans Are Looking Forward to the End of the World. Irreverent take on fundamentalist eschatology.

I'll also add, in agreement with some of the others (and as an affirmed agnostic) that Augustine's Confessions is a fine read just in terms of literary value, whether or not you see yourself as a religious person. But if you dislike flowery prose, and can only stand to see the man taken down a peg or two, Augustine: A New Biography (200) is also a good read. It speaks with great skepticism of many of the unlikely scenarios narrated in the Confessions, notably Augustine's "garden conversion." But I'd be surprised if it's attractive to anybody who hasn't read the Confessions themselves.

39>
I think it's safe to say that if we're attempting the Dewey challenge all of us will end up reading books we wouldn't otherwise pick up. But reading nearly 100 books you wouldn't ordinarily be interested in, when they're all on the same subject, is excessive, no matter the subject.

#42 Either that, or we will choose to be satisfied by not completing the entire challenge. I know I'm not close enough to 1000 books to be concerned about this. I'm sure each one of us has at least one section that we will have an incredibly difficult time completing. For me, it will be the 400's. For others, it looks like the 200's. So what. Right now, I'm having fun devising intermediate challenges for myself - all 10 sections form a single 100 level, or all 10 subjects in a single 10 level. At this rate, I'll be able to ignore those categories that I'm not interested in indefinitely.

If someone asks for suggestions, they are going to get some that they don't like. Ignore them. There is no reason to lash out. Just because you don't like the response doesn't mean someone else won't benefit from it.

43> indubitably

>43 sjmccreary: Agreed! I'm always happy to see suggestions for difficult categories, but I'm so far from completing the challenge right now that I can easily make progress while reading only books that I'm really interested in (though I have stuck in a bit of CS Lewis already so that I'm not stuck with 90 Christianity books in a row at the end). In theory I really like the idea of intermediate challenges, but somehow I still haven't gotten around to reading a 600 to finish up the big ten... oh well. As far as I'm concerned, any progress is good progress.

Several of the books I have read recently have been able to count for this challenge too. (I have no problem with double counting books, considering the slow pace at which I finish books). So I am considering this list to take quite a while.

What about Bertrand Russel's Religion and Science - 215 -- according to this work's details page, "Russell, philosopher, agnostic, mathematician, and renowned peace advocate, offers a brief yet insightful study of the conflicts between science and traditional religion during the last four centuries."

@47

One of Russell's books (Unpopular Essays - 192) is being transfered to my library for me. I haven't read him yet, but I've seen interviews he's given and he's terribly likable. He had a very pleasant attitude and humorous way of expressing himself.

This is kind of an old thread, but I wanted to mention this book I just finished: In the Land of Believers by Gina Welch. It's a 277: Christian Church in North America. Welch is a liberal, secular Jew who moves to Virginia for school and decides to go to Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road church in Lynchburg to try to understand Evangelicals. She goes undercover as a potential convert so that they aren't suspicious of her. I found it to be a very interesting book, and probably something that would interest those of you who are trying to complete some 200s without feeling like the author is trying to convert you.

**minor spoiler alert***

In the end, Welch doesn't convert, but she does form relationships with some of the people she meets at the church, and she changes her lifestyle and attitude somewhat (on her own, not because of pressure from church members). Her message seems to be that, although she disagrees with Evangelicals politically, does not believe in Christ, and has a different lifestyle than the church members, she still found common ground with people at the church and could see the good in them, as they could see in her.

carlym I probably would have liked that more than the 277 I read, but I can't really complain since I read it before I started the challenge.

I wasn't that fond of it, but for a version of Christianity that is extremely political and probably falls under liberation theology, you migh like (213 Creation) Who is Jesus? Answers to Your Questions About the Historical Jesus by Dominic Crossan.

Elaine Pagels has written a number of books that fall in the 200s categories. One of them that was entertaining is (241 Christian ethics) Adam, Eve and the Serpent: Sex and Politics in Early Christianity by Elaine Pagels. Her books tend to be fun and are less for the traditional scholar.

(261 Social theology) Consecrated Venom: The Serpent and the Tree of Knowledge by Caryl Johnston was really interesting to me. I enjoyed the extremely precise way in which Johnston asked and answered questions. She paid such close attention to details and language.

I know that I am adding to an older thread, but hope I wanted to wish you good luck in finishing out this category.

I dropped by to add to more recommendations:

236 Have a Nice Doomsday, Nicholas Guyatt (and already mentioned by Polutropon in post 40), and

277 Kingdom Coming: the Rise of Christian Nationalism, Michelle Goldberg, which I think is a must-read for anyone who can vote in the US elections (as a Canadian I just found it fascinatingly scary).

I've read Who Wrote the Bible?, Why I am Not a Christian and God is Not Great since I posted the list in #38 so I can give them a little background now.

God is Not Great (200) tackles the negative effects religion has had throughout history and is uncompromising in it's criticism of the crimes of religion. It talks primarily about Christianity and Islam, but contrary to what some might think this is not simply a case of an atheist picking on two of the most popular religions to day. He doesn't really put effort into disproving any religion, just showing that faith has motivated some pretty despicable stuff (or at best has been used to justify it). It's ultimately a counter point to religious folks that claim religion is a overwhelmingly positive force and ignore or make excuses for the negative.

Who Wrote the Bible (222) is a book focusing on the Documentary Theory, the theory that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses as traditionally claimed, but was compiled from several separate sources with repetitive and sometimes contradictory content. The author explains the history of scholarship of the Bible's authorship and explains his take on Documentary Theory using literary criticism and history to place the sources historically and ideologically. The book addresses the issue of authorship and avoids any discussion whether or not the Bible is the word of God until the last chapter where the author tries to assure his audience that the Documentary Theory is not reason to doubt the authenticity of Christianity...even though he has spent a decent amount of time discussing holy fraud and the political motives of various authors and editors.

Why I Am Not a Christian (211) is by one of my favorite authors, but honestly I thought it was rather uneven, and often not about religion at all. It includes some very good essays, but on the whole has a lot more mediocre essays and a couple bad ones. 211 isn't a hard category to fill for the non religious, Dewey seems to put a lot of the "atheists on religion" books in there so I'd recommend checking out more options for 211.

This year I read a couple of excellent 200 books that would appeal to the non-Christian. They both cover topics of religion interacting with human rights and politics:

277.308 Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, Kathryn Joyce

297.082 Caged Virgin, Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Adding one more:

201.39 - A Short History of Myth, Karen Armstrong. As the title says, it's short.

I think that "religion" does not deserve an entire class 200. "religion" and "atheism", each one, should have a subclass of class 100.

I know this is a REALLY old thread, but I love reading apologetics. Mostly for the history where authors are disproving the bible and thus christianity.

I was raised in a protestant family but left the church as soon as I left home basically and have not been back since.

I discovered Bart Ehrman several years ago - he has written several books on apologetics.

The first book of his I ever read and the only one I have immediately to hand is - Misquoting Jesus - DDC - 225.486

Possibly there are other books of his in this same category.

I'm going to read A Comfortable Pew by Pierre Berton for my 260's. Berton wrote a scathing critique of the churches in Canada in the 1960's.

Here are the others that I've read:
Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am? Insights into Personal Growth by John Powell (1995) - 200
The Age of reason by Thomas Paine (2019) - 210
TNIV New Testament by Zondervan Publishing (2002) - 220
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (Plus) by Bart D. Ehrman (2007) - 230
What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Women by James C. Dobson (1981) - 240
Church Signs Across America by Steve Paulson (2009) - 250

Letter to a Christian Nation: A Challenge to Faith by Sam Harris (2007) - 270
Under the banner of heaven : a story of violent faith by Jon Krakauer (2003) - 280
The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff (1982) - 290

Note: Church Signs and What Wives Wish are both Christian.

removed post.

>59 spyrunner: Is there one of those that fit the title of this thread, or the question from the original poster? Finding 200 books is easy-peasy. Looking at those titles, I don't see any that would meet the needs of the person asking the question.

>60 Nickelini: Indeed, this thread wandered far away from the original intent. Here is what Lorax had to say, as a review:

"As the person who prompted Zoe's question:

Christian apologists like C.S. Lewis do not qualify as books of interest to someone who is not Christian and has no interest in reading about Christianity. I had enough Christianity rammed down my throat as a child -- no matter how well-written it is, I don't need more books about how wonderful it is, thanks all the same. I'll happily leave most of the 200s empty rather than read that."

I read some religious books that I found interesting despite being in the religious section.

283 Kilvert's Diary is a diary from a Welch minister who likes nothing more than walking around Wales in the 1870's and writing poetically about all he sees. He writes juicy gossip about his parishioners, and falls in love a few times.

266 Not Forgotten the True Story of My Imprisonment is about a missionary that spends a couple of years in the prisons of North Korea. I learned a lot about how the North Koreans live. I often shook my head at the author and thought 'You idiot'.

276 My Father, Maker of the Trees: How I Survived the Rwandan Genocide is a first hand account of a man hiding from the Rwandan Genocide. The first half was exciting but heartbreaking, the second half he travels to America and becomes a Christian. I give you permission to skip the last half.

At the risk of being kicked out, isn't the point of this challenge to read something from each category? I am Christian, but have no problem reading Jewish, Muslim, zoroastrian books, whatever is in that category. And it doesn't have to be a book proving that religion wrong. I would like to know what the believers believe.

People argue about how much space is given to different topics, but this is a ddc challenge, not a ddc as it ought to be challenge.

If I didn't care for science or history, would a similar request be as warmly embraced?

>63 ritacate: That's exactly what the original question asked.

"...does anyone have suggestions for books in the 200s that would appeal to people who aren't religious, or who just aren't Christian? I'd imagine there must be some books that are pretty much history, and some that are critical of religious ideas, and plenty of other ones that somehow have broader appeal."

Feel free to add your suggestions.