My Books

Welcome to

my books page.

My first book, a memoir — 3,001 Arabian Days  — was published in late September 2018.

I published my second nonfiction book — Holy Smoke: How Christianity Smothered the American Dream — in February 2020.

Enjoy!

In the photo at left, I’m enjoying some quality time with a cute baby koala I met during my wife’s and my trip a couple of years ago to Australia and New Zealand.

‘3,001 Arabian Days’

A memoir of my boyhood in an American oil camp in Saudi Arabia in the 1950s and early ’60s. It was an idyllic time, both exotic and familiar, rich with camels and nomads and Little League and movie nights. It’s now available in paperback at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, and digital editions for iPad, Kindle and other e-readers will be available soon.

“I thoroughly enjoyed this involving and enchanting period piece about Arabia and America … disarmingly humane, affectionate, and insightful. I loved all those old black-and-white photos, too—so awesome!”             — Peter Theroux, “Sandstorm: Days and Nights in Arabia” (1991) 

“Remarkably insightful … thoughtful and elegantly written”                                                                      — Kirkus Reviews

‘Holy Smoke: How Christianity

Smothered the American Dream’

The United States’ Founding Fathers envisioned a secular republican government for their new nation in the 18^th century, where religious influence was kept discreetly apart from governance.

It didn’t turn out that way.

Our current president in the 21^st century aggressively courts the Christian Right, God is exalted on the walls of our schools and our money, and our attorney general is calling for a theocracy. This nonfiction book investigates the history of how America got to this place. The answer? Very slowly. And it suggests a way forward to a more rational, non-superstitious future.

    “The US is a bizarre outlier among prosperous and educated nations. On the one hand it is the greatest scientific powerhouse in the world, boasting more than its fair share of the world’s top universities. On the other hand it is a quagmire of religious fanaticism no less ridiculous than the worst that Iran or Pakistan have to offer. The explanation for this strange incongruity must surely be sought in the religious history of the republic. Rick Snedeker’s erudite yet readable book gives us just such a history. And very illuminating it is.”                                                                                                                                                — Richard Dawkins                                      (“The God Delusion”) on “Holy Smoke”