It's my turn to provide a book that my friends on the other side of the aisle will have reasons for not liking.  However, Dr. Schwartz will do something for you skeptics and atheists that I think you will appreciate, and that is he speaks from an empirical point of view from beginning to end.  You just won't like the conclusions that empirical inquiry these days leads to.  

Dr. Schwartz is a nueropsychiatrist who teamed up with a certain Henry Stapp (link) to brainstorm why Dr. Schwartz was generating results in his work with patients suffering from OCD that argued emphatically for nueroplasticity, something which reductionist materialists scientists (is that the same as an atheist?) had said for decades simply could not be.  Leaving aside how many people needlessly suffered because reductionists couldn't get beyond "it's all brain," Dr. Schwartz nonetheless didn't understand the physical basis for what he was observing.  So off he went in search for an answer.

What he discovered was that strong evidence had existed for some time that neuroplasticity was real.  In otherwords, even long after the so-called 'critical period' human brains could be 're-wired.'  Even quite significantly.  However, experimentation had also showed that the passive mind was not capable of 'burning' new thought patterns.  Rather, it was the active mind.  That is to say, one had to focus one's attention on something over a sustained period of time to generate changes in the brain matter's configuration.

However, the ability to focus attention is supposed to be a function derived from the raw matter of the brain in the first place.  How could the physicality of the brain give rise to a function of the brain whereby one could will physical changes to the brain?  The whole thing screams out for a non-reductionist explanation- something, mind, if you will, that does not reduce to the brain.  Dr. Schwartz labels this 'mental force.'  No doubt, this comes in part from the fact that Dr. Schwartz is a Buddhist.  We could probably think of other words to describe the same thing within history...

However, Dr. Schwartz does not by any means leave it there.  Drawing on the latest and greatest in quantum mechanics, with the aid of Henry Stapp, and instigated by his book "Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics," http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0387562893/102-7208256-0741720?v=glance&n=283155  which, incidentally, I read myself back in about 1995-6.  For that matter, Dr. Schwartz also talks about William James in a variety of contexts, about about 7 years ago I also dipped into James, in particular "The Will to Believe."  So, it was nice to see someone bringing to bear material I had once familiarized myself with.

At anyrate, the observer paradox and the Quantum Zeno effect eventually lead Dr. Schwartz to the conclusion that science has already established a basis by which attention can transform reality.  Just as Schroedinger's Cat remains in superposition until it is observed- ie, attended to- any number of various thoughts exist until we- the observer- attend to one of them, thus giving them reality.

In OCD, patients attend to the disruptive thoughts, thus burning in a pattern and a cycle that is difficult to emerge from- but which can be emerged from if attention is paid.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that this fact is powerful all on its own, even without the substantiation from the physicist community in regards to quantum processes.

Thus, from beginning to end, Dr. Schwartz brings to bear empirical material and scientific study after scientific study to support the contention that something like 'mental force' absolutely does exist and has measurable effects.

In otherwords, Dr. Schwartz provides a scientific rationale for accepting that the ability to freely choose that most of us take for granted is not an illusion, as the reductionists would have us believe, but a real thing.  Real, but not reducible to classical materialistic explanations.  And scientifically justified, to boot.

I plan on contacting Dr. Schwartz because while he recognizes that Buddhism is consistent with such things, and even predicts them, so too does Christianity.  But since he is a Buddhist and not a Christian, I'm not certain he is aware of how many other worldviews predict the same sort of stuff.

If per chance there were an atheist seeking for any kind of scientific corroboration for a non-reductionist POV, this book will provide suitable fodder for considering Christianity and Buddhism, as both predict and take into account scientific findings thousands of years before those findings were understood.   TM might be about the only other one that might make such a claim, but its not exactly old, either.  Other religions which have any emphasis on meditation might have an angle, but most don't in the way that this book presents the science.

So, in conclusion, if you really really really don't want to give any quarter to the notion that a reductionist POV can't plausibly explain everything, don't read this book.

However, it is worth reading just for the sake of its fine outlining of the weirdness of quantum mechanics.  Not as good as Gribbon's "In Search of Schroedinger's Cat" but then, Gribbon was writing his book to specifically address it.  Schwartz is just giving the highlights as they build up to the 'free will' defense.

Enjoy!

Amazon Link