Kirkus weighs in with another pre-publication review of the agnostic manifesto:

“Here, with clever elucidation, are artful essays that celebrate the wonder of the unknown… Hazleton does not deny possibilities; she denies only assured and implacable dogma.”

I know it’s pointless to review the reviews, but I can’t help myself.  “Clever elucidation”?  What about simply lucid?  Never mind: it may be in kind of antiquated language, but it gives a pretty good idea of what I’m about:

A seasoned reporter on religion and an old hand on the Middle East beat, Hazleton (The First Muslim, 2013, etc.) is Jewish by blood and convent-educated by nuns. After more than a decade in Jerusalem, she finds that accepted pious practice is not for her. For the author, doubt is not a problem but a blessing. She does not seek assurance of an all-encompassing intelligent design but, rather, revels in the prospects that just might yet be discovered by mankind. For this agnostic, there is delight in mystery. Her faith is in not knowing everything. Humanity, certainly, is subject to misadventure, yet it is for humans to determine what is truly significant. Meaning, in her book, is not the responsibility of a force beyond us; how we behave is our choice and our obligation. The old aphorism is clear to Hazleton: man created God, not the other way around, and she sees Him (who is consistently male) as an anthropomorphic metaphor for something bigger. “If there is one thing that can really be said with any certainty about God,” she writes, “it is that the name is utterly insufficient to the concept.” Throughout the book, the author dissects the manifestations of religious devotion. Religious belief is seen as binary, a true-or-false proposition. Where, she asks, is the nuance? Is our universe unique or only one in a greater cosmos? How can we comprehend what is beyond infinity? The agnostic mind finds no satisfactory answers in canonical tracts or fundamentalist piety. There’s no need to reckon with evil, infidels, or visiting angels. Here, with clever elucidation, are artful essays that celebrate the wonder of the unknown. Atheists and devout worshipers alike may never accept the agnostics’ philosophy. But even in defense of simply not knowing, Hazleton does not deny possibilities; she denies only assured and implacable dogma.

Pre-orders are important, so go ahead right here!

The first pre-publication review of Agnostic: A Spirited Manifesto just arrived from Booklist:

“Hazleton’s manifesto makes the suspension of conviction as attractive as any theist or atheist testament,” it concludes.

Well, I’d say far more attractive, but then I might be a tad biased.

It’s always odd to find your own work written about in terms you’d never use.  “Mental comfort?”  None of that for me, thank you!   “Historiography?”  Never on the agenda.  But overall, my review of the review is that it’s a serviceable overview, and a very positive one.

Feel free to add your own review of it, of course.  And don’t fear using the pre-order button.  I’ll post soon about why this is important (it involves the mysterious realm of algorithms).

Meanwhile, roll on, April 5!

Perhaps it’s not surprising that the author of accessible, balanced accounts of Muhammad, the Sunni-Shia split in Islam, and the Blessed Virgin withholds judgment about the existence of God.  In eight personably persuasive chapters, she counts the benefits of agnosticism, though not so much for the practice of objective historiography as for personal intellectual freedom and mental comfort.  Neither believing nor disbelieving in God removes the irksome pressure to choose sides.  It allows deep and continual exploration into the realities the word God used to contain.  It permits living in doubt or, as Emily Dickinson had it, “dwell[ing] in possibility.” It accepts irresolvable mystery, facilitates understanding how humans makes meaning, encourages acknowledging mortality (“The meaning of life is that it stops”), and grasping — well, appreciating — infinity.  Finally, agnosticism lets one give up on the soul — a possession — in favor of soul as a “quality of existence,” as when we say something is soulful.  Informed by science, philosophy, literature, history, travel, hiking, and more, Hazleton’s manifesto makes the suspension of conviction as attractive as any theist or atheist testament.

— Ray Olson, Booklist, February 1, 2016