1) The names Goldstein has given her characters are all unusual: from Cass Seltzer to Lucinda Mandelbaum to Cass’s first wife Pascale to Jonas Elijah Klapper, whose actual last name is Klepfish. What is the significance of the names to the book as a whole? How do they illuminate Goldstein’s themes?

2) Consider the character of Lucinda Mandelbaum and her tendency to “fang” her colleagues after lectures. Why does she do this? What larger statements is Goldstein making about gender in academia?

3) Compare Goldstein’s descriptions of the rituals of the Onuma people to the rituals of the New Walden Hasidim.

4) Lucinda says that most of what matters in life is a “zero sum game” in which one person’s gain or loss is balanced by the losses or gains of another person. Do you think she is correct? Do the events of the novel support her idea?

5) Consider your own religious beliefs in light of the novel. Are you able to feel sympathy for characters who hold beliefs different from your own? Given the tenor of the current debates about religion, is it possible to talk about the subject of religion without rancor?

6) 36 Arguments for the Existence of God is also an academic satire. Compare this book to other novels about academia, such as Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, Francine Prose’s Blue Angel, and David Lodge’s Small World.

7) Consider the choice Azarya has to make. Is the situation as impossible as he believes it to be? By the end of the book, do you feel that he is wholly a believer?

8) Goldstein writes: “Studies have found that a large proportion of Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays, and communists, as sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists, the researchers reported, seem to be playing the pariah role once assigned to Catholics, Jews, communists, and homosexuals, seen as harboring alien and subversive values, or, more likely, as having no inner values at all. Why do you think this is so?