Why I Am Not an Atheist: The Confessions of a Skeptical Believer

Named One of The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2026 One of The New York Times’s anticipated books of February! What can I know? What must I do? What may I hope? National Book Award–longlisted author Christopher Beha recounts his struggle with these questions while making an earnest appeal for readers to seek out answers of their own Twenty-five years ago, celebrated author (and cradle Catholic) Christopher Beha gave up on God. Helped along by a reading of Bertrand Russell’s classic text Why I Am Not a Christian, he became a committed atheist, certain that his days of belief were behind him. A youthful brush with mortality soon set Beha on a decades-long quest for meaning in a godless world.