On Religion, by John D Caputo

With some deft sophistry (heavily influenced by Derrida, who also produced one of the other five books in Routledge's new Thinking in Action series), John D Caputo redefines religion as a love of the unforseeable. And, as that is a given in life, his definition of religiosity pretty much equates with my definition of joie de vivre. So the opposite of a religious person is not an atheist, merely a "pusillanimous curmudgeon". But it's not all just clever wordplay. With his unorthodox defini-tions in place, Caputo goes on to denounce dogma, put Marx, Nietzsche and Freud in their historical places and to reunite religion, mysticism and science. On top of all that, there's a detailed deconstruction of religion in the Star Wars films. I'm converted.