Atheist Book Covers

I think it does have to do with the target audience. From my personal observations, these styles of Christian books are very popular with the self-help crowd. Notice any similarities in the covers? Publishers somewhere realized that if you want to sell drivel to desperate, guilty people who don’t like to think, you put a big picture of a smiling guy in suit on it. Personally, that type of cover sends me running.

Hmm, that’s not the cover of the God Delusion I’ve seen around here. I guess different covers for different versions and markets.

Uhoh, I looked directly at Hitchens’s book. Ow, my eyes!

No offense, but I think you cherry-picked those Christian books. Go to amazon and look at the top selling Christian books and you won’t see books like that. They have books like Rob Bell’s Sex God, Anne Lamott’s Grace (Eventually), Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life, and Francis Collins Language of God – all of which have much different covers than the one’s you chose.

Okay. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t saying that those were representative of Christian books. I think the type of cover has more to do with the type of book it is than whether the book is an atheist or Christian book. I just browsed through my own books and the Christian books on philosophy and theology tend to be more like the atheist books above. The Christian and Science books tend to be a lot like Victor Stenger’s book (e.g. Collins’ book or this book). The “Christian Living” type of books tend to have some sort of picture or pattern or design on the front (e.g., Anne Lamott’s book). And as King Aardvark said, the self-help and prosperity gospel type books tend to have pictures of the authors on the front. I’m not even sure if there are atheist equivalents to some of those types of Christian books. I’m not sure how you would classify Barker’s Losing Faith in Faith, but the cover of his book that I saw had a picture of him on it.

Oh, and well, here’s an atheist book that’s at least a little more interesting when it comes to cover art.

Taking a break from my “discussion” with the Brights…

Here’s my favorite Atheist book. Well, okay, it’s not exactly “Atheist,” but it does have that really handsome and charismatic guy on the front cover!

Oh, and don’t utilize the “search inside” option either. You will go mad.

Great observations, Hemant! The smiling suits and the clasped hands escaped me entirely! There’s just some things I don’t catch these days.

Weather you “cheery-picked” those christian books or not, they aren’t one but attractive. They are almost wierd, to see some guy smiling at you as you read, not soothing in my opinion. But these atheist books are bright and colorful, so they caught my eyes. When I see one guy on a cover It reminds me of some chessy book that isn’t worth reading, I guess I was right all along

Hi,
I have written two novels both of which are strongly slanted toward atheism, and both of which were inspired by the philosophy of the novelist Ayn Rand.
The first novel is called “Zeno’s Paradox” and it can be viewed at http://www.booklocker.com . The galley copy of the novel, “Hunker Creek’s Gold”, is being sent to me and I should have it shortly. It will appear at http://www.booklocker.com during the first week of December.
If you are interested in reviewing “Zeno’s Paradox”, please advise me by return e-mail.
I have set out below the short synopsis for each novel that appears on the covers.
Gordon

Zeno’s Paradox

My novel, Zeno’s Paradox, was inspired by the philosophy of the novelist Ayn Rand.

Howard Rhodes’ father was a renowned physicist. He and his wife were killed in a suspicious car accident when Howard was fourteen years old. Howard is now sixteen and living on his own as an emancipated minor. He is also an intellectually gifted and well-adjusted teenager whose mother stimulated his love for learning, explained Christianity’s fatal flaw to him, and taught him that his most valuable asset was his brain and his ability to reason.

In school, Howard deals with a challenge from a classmate who is a class bully, and who is making everyone’s life miserable. He also entertains his classmates and stuns his math and physics teachers when he unravels the error in the logic to Zeno’s famous Paradox, which has had scientists baffled since 400 BC.

Howard’s interest in physics leads him to investigate various possibilities regarding small particles, and he attracts everyone’s attention, including Stefan Nacouski’s who is a sleeper al Qaeda agent living in the United States, when he discovers a new source of energy.

Not only does Howard’s new source of energy eliminate the need for burning fossil fuels, but also, he can create a particle beam shield that will protect the United States and its allies from a Ballistic Missile attack. Unfortunately, this same device can be refined to create a beam that will silently kill hundreds of innocent people. Stephan will resort to anything to get his hands on Howard’s Killing Machine.

Hunker Creek’s Gold

A group of highly trained terrorist snipers are keeping almost every US law enforcement officer busy investigating random attacks. A second arm of the terrorist group is secretly importing and warehousing enormous amounts of narcotics.

The group’s intention is to flood the US market with drugs at prices anyone can afford. Their aim is to addict as many people as possible including high ranking politicians, business people, law enforcement officers, civil servants, and military personnel. The terrorists predict that this will cause America to grind to a standstill. They plan to step up the random sniper attacks spreading terror throughout United States. And, this will be the signal for the Militant, Right Wing groups’ leaders to band together and agitate for a citizen’s revolt against their government that can no longer protect its citizens.

Mike Cranston is a trained Navy Seal sniper, and Little John knows all of the Militant, Right Wing groups’ leaders in the country. Together they plan to infiltrate the terrorist group.

During the summer, Shane Atkins operates his placer mine on Hunker Creek, and he is studying philosophy at the University of Oregon during the off season. He and his mentors are concerned that the moral culture of the United States is in a downward spiral.

Shane’s lecture series for artists, called the Philosophy of the Nature of Man, attracts the attention of the councilors at the many rehab clinics that have sprung up throughout America. The drug councilors are convinced that his compelling logic in support of a rational basis for ethics, a romantic renaissance in the arts, and man’s efficacy offers a valuable alternative to the Twelve Step program.