Resources and reading

Regular news updates

Humanists UK weekly e-bulletin is available to subscribe to for free and without needing to be a member.

Similarly, every Friday the National Secular Society (NSS) sends out Newsline, an e-bulletin of their news. You can subscribe to this whether or not you are a member.

Humanists UK and the NSS also produce quarterly newsletters. Copies are sent to individual members as well as us as a group.  Do ask if you would like to see a copy. And remember to sign up for our newsletter.

Magazines / Periodicals

Humanistically Speaking” is a monthly magazine produced by volunteers from Humanists UK local partner groups in the South Central England Humanist Network. Latest issues can be found here.

New Humanist” is a quarterly magazine of culture and science, published since 1885. Further details can be found here.

Books

Richard Dawkins – The God Delusion

Richard Dawkins –  A Devil’s Chaplain (A collection of essays and reviews with Dolly and the Cloth Heads and A Prayer for my Daughter especially useful.)

Barbara Smoker – Humanism (5th edition)

Christopher Hitchens  – God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Alice Roberts and Andrew Copson  – The Little Book of Humanism: Universal Lessons on Finding  Purpose, Meaning and Joy

From the OUP Very Short Introductions series:

  • No. 99  Atheism – Julian Baggini
  • No 256 Humanism – Stephen Law

Online Courses

The Open University, in conjunction with Humanists UK, has put together two excellent MOOCs (massive open online courses) through their Future Learn platform. These are:

Introducing Humanism: non-religious approaches to life with Sandi Toksvig

A six-week course requiring approximately three hours per week. Free. Exploring what humanism is and its central themes.

Humanist Lives,  with Alice Roberts

A six-week course requiring approximately three hours per week, exploring how humanism influences the way people live their lives. Free.

Humanists UK on YouTube:

Humanists UK has a YouTube channel with a range of excellent short interviews, debates and information pieces. It’s well worth a couple of hours of your time.

This also includes the very engaging series of ‘That’s Humanism’ animations narrated by Stephen Fry – four three-minute videos that are a succinct and positive introduction to humanism and how it affects our lives.