This is not only a book for children, but also for grown ups.

I always thought that the author was Arab, but only in recent days, I found out that he’s Brazilian.

The God Delusion

It’s a book openly written to un-convert to the converted, and for the same reason can be very controversial and some people even considered it as offensive (e.g. in the first chapter it explains the sins of the God of the Old Testament).

It provides evidence on why Natural Selection is a better theory than the so called theory of the Intelligent Design (The God hypothesis).

The book defends the children’s right to don’t be labeled as adherents of any religion only for that fact that their parents are. Children are free individuals and must think for them selves.

It provides the following scale to measure the belief of the persons:

1.00: Strong theist. 100 percent possibility of God. In the words of C.G. Jung, ‘I do not believe, I know.’

2.00: Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. De facto theist. ‘I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there

3.00: Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. Technically agnostic but leaning towards theism. ‘I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.’

4.00: Exactly 50 per cent. Completely impartial agnostic. ‘God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.’

5.00: Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. Technically agnostic but leaning towards atheism. ‘I don’t know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be sceptical.’

6.00: Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. ‘I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.’

7:00: Strong atheist. ‘I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung ‘knows’ there is one.’

The book explains that non-belivers (atheist) are happy, moral, balanced and healty persons (being an atheist is being considered as bad thing for many religious people, specialy in USA). And encourages the atheist to be prod of it.

• Pedro Páramo – A novel about a man’s quest for his heritage.

• El Llano en llamas (The Burning Plain) – A tales compilation

That’s all what he published, but they are so interesting and very well written, that they were enough to put Rulfo in one of the more prestigious places in Literature.

I remember I heard a a radio interview with Gabriel García Marquez, where we was asked about the small contribution (just two books!) of Rulfo, he’s answer was simple: Anyone able to write such precious books, does not really need to write anything else.

“I came to Comala because I had been told that my father, a man named Pedro Páramo, lived here. It was my mother who told me. And I had prommised her that after she died I would see him.” First text from Pedro Páramo

“Don’t You Hear the Dogs Bark?” On the most famous tales in El llano en llamas

It’s a so called popular science book by Stephen Hawking, its an attempt to explain a very wide range of subjects in cosmology. It talks about BigBang, Black Holes, Stars, Time, etc.

I think that the more interesting concept for me was the one of Light Cones, it really helps you to understand many things!

I also remember that previous to that book I had the idea that time travel was possible  (I still think that time pseudo-travel to the future will be possible, but definitely not to the past), and the solution to the question was soooo simple: If time travel were possible, we would be full of visitors from the future, and we are not! It was so simple that I was blind to see it.

I really recommend it.

The novel in fact is based on puzzels, adpating very well the described mind of Jacques Saunière, the just murdered curator of the Lovre Museum. But before he died he figured out a way to leave clues around him with the firm conviction that only his granddaughter,  Sophie Neveu, and Robert Langdon, can untangle.

Langdon and Neveu have a thrilling time solving the puzzle wich leads them to understand a mystery that has been hidden by a secret society for two thoustand years…. but that has clues all over.

It was a very polemic book, and there are even books written as a response to it, the most polemic issue is that talks about the idea of Mary Magadalane as wife of … guess whom? but also the way it links many ideas that have been in the air for years.

When I received the book I realized it was true, the 16 stories in the book are interesting imaginative and very well writen and I really enjoyed them, some of them have even some kind of erotic taste, which I understood once I dig a bit in the life of the writer: Miranda July.