I would add The Lord of the Flies, which is in fact a horror movie and all the more so because it’s based on facts, to that list. The 1963 movie version is a true and most important classic which was WAY ahead of its time. In the story a group of young schoolboys stranded on an island quickly divide into a secular/rational group and a religious/fascist group; the religious/fascist group eventually starts killing members of the secular/rational group.
Anything by James Michener, Alexandre Dumas, Dr. Bart Ehrman, Socrates, Plato, Thomas Paine, Karen Armstrong, Elaine Pagels, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut, Edward Rutherford, and Ken Follett.
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer
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I Am Yeshua by S.A.K. Arthur (S. A. K. Arthur – Medium)
Read that one, very good book, but A Tale of Two Cities is mine, read it dozens of times, all of humanity is in there, if you look…and the characters leap off the page in a way few others can manage, a nod to Les Miserable, but take your time, it’s a commitment.
I think Great Expectations beats that one.
Not for me, but yes it is another book in which the author defines the human condition, and creates complex characters that leap from the page.
I would recommend many other books by Dickens of course, Martin Chuzzlewit, Hard Times, Oliver Twist to name a few, but the first I read was The Pickwick papers, and I think people often don’t realise Charles Dickens’s comedic prowess, even when exploring and expanding on pretty dark or depressing themes.
When a young person tells me they want to be a writer, I first ask them if they want to be a writer or an author. After that discussion, I suggest that if they want to write then they should read, Dickens in particular. 
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Golding’s classic was penned in 1951, and was entirely fictional.
Nope, the first film based on it in 1963, was not a factual story. I am not aware of a film that encompassed Golding’s classic, and factual events, but the book was definitely fictional.
Whilst not explicitly focused solely on religion, the book is widely considered to be a religious allegory, and heavily draws on biblical themes & symbolism. It ultimately explores the “veneer” of civilisation, and how it might break down, by delving into the idea that…when societal order collapses, individuals are capable of committing unspeakable acts, it explores the inherent struggle between “civilisation and savagery”, and thus examines the nature of evil.
I haven’t read that book, but I did read – and can recommend – the Third Reich trilogy by historian Richard J. Evans. It’s a series of three “bricks” packed with Third Reich history. And for those interested in how Holocaust revisionists revise history, Lying About Hitler, also by Richard Evans, is well worth a read.
OMG! You’re right! That was an incredible book!
Lately, I’ve been on a Brandon Sanderson binge. His world building is delightful. What I find particularly interesting in the Cosmere books is his creation of religions and treatment of the religious.
I love reading–literally–anything by Carl Sagan. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark was one of the best, although Broca’s Brain was also excellent, if a little dated. I also loved The Dragons of Eden.
I have also read about 375 of Isaac Asimov’s 497 books.
Benjamin Radford wrote a delightful book called Bad Clowns, and I loved Origins by Richard E. Leakey. Another favorite is Of Time, Space, and Other Things by Stephen Hawking.
Books that I didn’t enjoy, but feel that are important to read include The Concept, Etiology, and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever by Ignaz Semmelweis, Principia Mathematica by Issac Newton, Elements by Euclid, and–of course–The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.
I also enjoyed Future Shock by Alvin Toffler.
I am/was a professional science fiction writer, so I studied science in the way that an artist might study human anatomy.
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I’m not as well read as some here. I have read several books by michael crichton. A book about Ginseng Hunters. I rarely read books just to read, usually I look up specific information about various topics. Lately I like to read science papers about tonic mushrooms, and how to produce very potent mushrooms. I grow Reishi, and cordyceps militaris, and I have also grown blue oyster mushrooms. An extremely fascinating hobby.
I started reading a book in Epseranto, "mermaid street’. I haven’t gotten very far, as its online. I have also read from a translation of the bible in Esperanto, to try to increase my vocabulary, and the years of religion has me a little too familiar with the text, but it does make it a little easier to learn.
Atheism: The Case Against God, by George Smith is still the best single book on atheism.
Asimov’s Guide to Science
Asimov teaches science through the history of science. The stories keep you fascinated.
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I haven’t read that one; care to explain why you think so?
For me, eye openers were first and foremost my physics textbooks at university – mechanics, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, etc. – that explained how the world around us works without needing any external godly influences. Mathematics and computer science also helped. Alongside this, books like The blind watchmaker and The selfish gene by Richard Dawkins also played an important role(*), alongside seeing creationists and religious lunatics explain the witchcraft they believe in, both in person and on the net. But the shenanigans of one religious sect in particular made me realise the lunacy of religion and brainwashing: Scientology. The attempts at censoring the Internet that Scientology did in the late 1990s felt like watching a speeding train derailing in slow motion.
Only after I had realised that I had became an atheist, I started reading Dawkins’ The God Delusion and Hitchens’ God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and others. They worked great in putting my thoughts into system, explaining why I was already thinking the way I did, as well as giving me some new food for thought.
(*) I studied physics at university, so I had to go the popular science route to read up on biology and evolution. These books are classics, and explain evolution in layman’s terms.
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Atheism: The Case Against God confronts the arguments for the existence of God directly, shows why they are fallacious, analyses the definition of God, and shows why it is self-contradictory, thereby proving with logical certainty that there is no god. I have read it at least 4 times with several years between and always learn something new each time because I come at it with more knowledge and make more connections. I had 6 majors and 2 minors in college, some majors were math and philosophy and a minor in physics. I look at everything through the eyes of physics. Everything that happens is an interplay between kinetic energy and potential energy.
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