"Holidays and Other Disasters" considers the major U.S. holidays-Easter, Christmas, Opening Day, etc.-from an atheist's perspective. It examines explicitly religious holidays, those that have a definite if not always acknowledged religious thrust (Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving) and secular holidays that had religious elements added on (like Labor Day) by way of personal stories, usually the author's own. Where other people have especially revealing holiday stories, as is the case with Jack Johnson (the first black heavyweight champion) and the Fourth of July, novelist Salman Rushdie and...