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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
just a really fun, quick read. fun enough to read more than once!
All about possibilities in afterlife. Some touch me deeply (for example, Egalitaire); some ideas are just brilliant (e.g. Sum); and some are less impressive. But well worth the read.
Sooooo. This book is so imaginative yo. Like I cannot get over how hard it would put been for the everyday person to turn on something in their brain that would allow them to have so many ideas and what ifs. I think it's safe to say that my favorite was angst. I really really feel,the longing that was depicted in that story and the way that he wrote it with such imagery that it was almost like I was there. This book was good and thought provoking and makes you realize that there may be things that are a lot worse that living.
I think I wanted this to be more ethereal than it was. It leaned on sci fi.
Thanks, Becky, for giving me this book for Christmas! It was great. Every essay in the book really made me think -- is this what the afterlife is like? And even though they were all different, they all seemed somehow plausible. I had some of the same favorites as others mentioned -- the one where you wait around in a kind of purgatory until the last time someone mentions you on Earth (funny to imagine all the famous people just hanging around praying that people will finally stop talking about them), the first essay where you re-live your life but you do it categorically -- like you spend two weeks cutting your toenails, 5 months waiting in line, a year being truly happy, etc. I also really liked the last one where you live your whole life backwards and the one where you keep encountering potential versions of you -- like what you would have been like if you worked harder or saved your marriage, or whatever. It is interesting that the guy who wrote the book is a neuroscientist -- not the first person I would expect to write a book about the afterlife -- but it works.
A person in one of my psychology classes recommended this book to me, and I am so glad I decided to check it out. Eagleman presents readers with a variety of afterlife scenarios, all of which are though-provoking. Some of them were more interesting and engaging to me, but I think that is one of the strengths of these tales. There is likely a tale that every person would either enjoy or find interesting to some degree. It really does provide a differing perspective than any take of the afterlife I have ever come across before.
My favorite tales were Sum, Metamorphosis, Missing, Prism, Graveyard of the Gods
My only really issue was the pronouns used in the book. They can be a singular pronoun, and I think that utilizing that would have made some scenarios more applicable to people, in particular descriptions of our lives before the afterlife or even the lives within that afterlife. I find it odd to continue to place gods/God in the gender binary. However, I love that Eagleman did not limit God to being solely interpreted as male, as is so common in Western society.
My favorite tales were Sum, Metamorphosis, Missing, Prism, Graveyard of the Gods
My only really issue was the pronouns used in the book. They can be a singular pronoun, and I think that utilizing that would have made some scenarios more applicable to people, in particular descriptions of our lives before the afterlife or even the lives within that afterlife. I find it odd to continue to place gods/God in the gender binary. However, I love that Eagleman did not limit God to being solely interpreted as male, as is so common in Western society.
Sum is a collection of tales from the Afterlife - essentially playing with different myths, ideas and theories about life after death. Written somewhat cheekily most of the tales present a basic thesis with a cynical twist.
Stand-outs for me where Egalataire, Circle of Friends and Reversal stood out for me (although there could be a primacy and recency effect there. The problem with short fiction collections is they tend to blur into one).
While all on the same theme, each story's offering is different, some provide a more technically interesting theory, while others provide a philosophical challenge, and others a twist on well-known myths.
From a nerdy point of view Sum has to be the most effective use of 2nd person perspective I've read. Tidy and comfortable I never once felt like the use of 'you' jarred me out of the story or was used poorly!
Stand-outs for me where Egalataire, Circle of Friends and Reversal stood out for me (although there could be a primacy and recency effect there. The problem with short fiction collections is they tend to blur into one).
While all on the same theme, each story's offering is different, some provide a more technically interesting theory, while others provide a philosophical challenge, and others a twist on well-known myths.
From a nerdy point of view Sum has to be the most effective use of 2nd person perspective I've read. Tidy and comfortable I never once felt like the use of 'you' jarred me out of the story or was used poorly!
I first read this book more than 15 years ago, and to this day, some of these stories stick with me. Humans have been pondering for millenia what happens when we die, and this anthology gives us 40 possibilities. Each is intriguing to imagine and makes you question what you want the afterlife to look like. My favorite part of these stories is the twist at the end of each. With each story you are introduced to a new possibility from one perspective, and then, right at the end, are shown a new way to view it. It makes you consider each outcome from multiple perspectives and makes you stop and think.
This gem of a book produces the effect of sinking into David Eagleman's mind, where the possibilities of the afterlife are endless: god, robots, chance, memory, longing, love are all here and tightly knit into separate brief tales, each one making you long to know more.