http://www.themaineedge.com/buzz/embr...Following the titular conceit, “Every Day is an Atheist Holiday” features chapters named for holidays…but not the ones you might think. Sure some classics such as Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July make appearances, but other chapters are headed by things like Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Groundhog Day and April Fool’s Day. Jillette uses (occasionally tenuous) connective through threads to wed these holidays to anecdotes from his own life – anecdotes that...

This review comes from a friend who read this book, but doesn't have his own Goodreads account, so I offered to put it up for him.With his tell-it-like-it-is style many people will find Penn Jillette's newest book "Every Day Is An Atheist Holiday: More Magical Tales" to be a seamless sequel to his previous book "God, No! Signs You May Already Be An Atheist And Other Magical Tales." Once again Penn lays his personal stories out in the open with no shame to whom may care. I like this style as it l...

Penn is an insightful dude. Great story about the EPCOT brick!

The title is misleading. While Penn interjects a few atheist stories into his book, the primary focus is not the mindset of atheism but rather Penn himself. They are cute stories for the most part, but they would go down better if told by a third party; told by Jillette, they come off as pompous and boastful. He also suffers from that most-boring of conceits: zealous pride and obsession with his kids. Is there anything less interesting than a parent discussing their children? He even trots out t...

Penn Jillette is very smart, a very good storyteller, very irreverent and very funny.I don't know why I don't read more of him, or watch more of him or have more of him in my life.The chapter on the Shaft theme alone made me laugh out loud in an empty library and a crowded Subway shop within an hour of each other.Now I'm wishing I would have went and saw his show in Las Vegas.What a schmuck I am! (you'd get that if you read the book)

Penn Jillette comes off as loud and arrogant when he speaks, but his books show how humble and self-depreciating he is. I love his logic, and he is the best at summing up an idea in a beautiful phrase or short story. He can explain atheism better than Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins. And he can explain it in such a beautiful way that it will have you crying with joy.The book is mostly Jillette recalling his life in a series of short stories. They have nothing to do with atheism, but he h...

I enjoyed this personal biography narrated by Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller fame. While its not for everyone, it is for me. 8 of 10 stars

I may have been a little harder on Penn's first collection of essays if I'd known better. With the title of _god, No_ and the subtitle, I thought he was mostly focusing atheism. But now with a follow-up book it seems clear that Penn is just writing random essays (maybe blog posts) and peppering in atheism. Penn is wildly entertaining, although I highly disagree with him that Johnny Carson was ever funny, Lou Reed is any kind of credible musician and, more importantly, Martin Luther King was 'hol...

I liked Penn's book, GOD NO!Penn really shows his true colors in this one though. What an egomaniac. Did I enjoy this book at all??? GOD NO!

It's interesting for the most part, but his anti-fair trade and fair pay rants are random and annoying. There are some other reasons for a lower grade, but they would include spoilers. It goes to show that just because someone is like you and doesn't believe in mythology, it doesn't mean you'll like them or their choices and other beliefs.

Remember the last time you asked your great uncle Morris how he was and he rambled on for over an hour without coming close to giving you an answer? It was bad, right? Now imagine that he has a huge chip on his shoulder that will probably lead to an extra 30 minutes of full on ranting. You're a good kid. you respect him, so even though he occasionally spits, you stand and listen. Even when he heaves missives about his profound love of his cock into the jumbled vocabular stew, you listen. And lis...

Ok, I admit Penn Jillette is not for everyone. In fact, he may be writing for only a narrow swath of the reading public. But his books are genuinely funny, if you can tolerate the language and are not offended by someone who not only does not believe what you believe, but who expresses those beliefs in outrageous language. Yet...under the profane language, sexual references, etc., this is a man who, while deeply odd, is loving, loyal and kind. And that come through when he talks about his wife a...

Well I guess I have officially turned into an old fuddy-duddy because I could not get through this book (and it is one of very few that I have ever given up on). I'm not one to be easily offended, but Jillette gratuitously uses obscene stories and language for nothing more than shock value - and by the time my Kindle hit 70% I had had enough.Perhaps the point of the book was that for atheist every day is a sin-filled holiday, filled to the brim with obscene filth that nobody really cares to hear...

A look into Penn's life and art; some great stories. In one about being in The Celebrity Apprentice, where he got his friends in Blue Man Group to come along and bring money in an unconventional manner (in a balloon), and Clay Aiken was being a git to him as usual, I remember trying to remember if Penn's group won that challenge or not. But it was a silly question. Either way, Penn won - he was able to delight in his friends' art; Trump's games and approval meant nothing to him. He is, quite sim...

Before I get burned for this, I need to say two things:1) I am a near-militant agnostic. 2) I really love(d) Jillette's fiction and stage act. I'm not sure what the new ones are like, hence the qualifier there.So, why did I give it one star? Simply put, as it says, I "didn't like it." Is it an intrinsically bad book? No. But I didn't like it.There are a few reasons, but the two most important - and confusingly contradictory - are that it's too much like his old stuff and not enough like the olde...

Every Day Is An Atheist Holiday by Penn JilletteGive or take a year or two, it’s been a quarter of a century since I first came across a television show featuring a pair of magicians who stopped me in my metaphorical tracks by performing a series of jaw dropping tricks, then showing the audience exactly how they were done, and then doing them again, but in such a way that even having been shown the old man behind the curtain I still sat there, slack mouthed, exclaiming “How do they do that?”A la...

Penn Jillette, after how successful God, No! was, gets a second book, this time with the conceit of using holidays as a backdrop for his stories and advocacy. If you know Penn Jillette, you know what you're getting - unfiltered opinion, some humor, some heart, and some pretty crazy stories. This book, of course, is no different. He runs the gamut from bizarre early adulthood stories to a few pieces on his Celebrity Apprentice experiences, touches plenty on both the business of magic and atheism,...

I knew this book would be funny and profane. I also knew Jillette would spent a fair amount of time discussing religion (or lack thereof) and magic. But I was surprised to find so much tenderness in these pages, too. Occasionally Jillette's brashness takes a back seat to sincere and touching discussions of his affection for Teller, for his wife and (especially) his kids, for his parents, and even for people you'd think he wouldn't like.I don't agree with everything Jillette says. But I can at le...

I'm sitting here wondering if I'm really giving a book by Penn Jillette five stars. And the answer is, yes I most definitely am. I can hardly believe it myself. My expectations for this book were low. Even though I'm an atheist like Jillette, I sometimes find him annoying and abrasive on his show Penn and Teller's Bullshit! But I defy any person of any religion to open their religious books and find any that contain as much joy, love, and appreciation for life that Jillette shows in this book. A...

Well, there are some very good essays, there are some good essays and then there’s some really boring, dumb ones (that takes a star out). But I really liked some of the stuff, and also got to know about a nifty little peacenik Beats curioshop in Fresco, Texas which I will visit some time- so here goes four stars.