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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
I'm sort of torn between three and four stars.
Einstein's Dreams, only about possible manifestations of the afterlife. There were a lot of really creative ones. A few of them were really similar, but overall, very creative.
Einstein's Dreams, only about possible manifestations of the afterlife. There were a lot of really creative ones. A few of them were really similar, but overall, very creative.
Super interesting short stories all answering “what is the afterlife”
Short stories which do not come to a logical conclusion have always riled me up. But now, I have finally started making peace with it. I now appreciate how I ponder on some ideas long after reading them. This book talks about the possible worlds we go to after we die. It is very easy to fall into the cliched after life worlds of hell and heaven, but the author twists the question, flips it and prods it from so many more directions that the stories in this book are highly engaging and invoke wonder. Some ideas from this book are gonna stay in my head for a long time. When they decay , i would definitely come back for a re-read.
Sum: 40 Tales of the Afterlives is a collection of 40 different imaginations of what happens after death. Although the afterlife is almost patently religious, the tales inside don't follow the typical religious themes that you might be used to. In one story, the afterlife is comprised of different versions of yourself and you face the inadequacies of your own life versus the opportunities that other versions of you took advantage of. In another you live in a world comprised of only the people you met and knew, and suddenly realize that that this was exactly how you chose to live your life when you were alive. Far from being a story about fire and brimstone, Sum delivers a thought-provoking look at how we live our lives and how we perceive the world around us.
I was introduced to Sum: 40 Tales of the Afterlives through the NPR show RadioLab, which dedicated an entire episode to similar themes as those presented in David Eagleman’s book. Interested to read more I picked up the book on my Kindle and I am glad to say that what I got was a very imaginative and refreshing look at life after death. Eagleman is a neuroscientist who studies "time perception, synesthesia, and how neuroscience will influence the legal system", which makes this even more interesting to read because you wonder how is own studies have affected his creative process.
I highly recommend this book. I think that for the sake of conversation alone you'll want to read through it and recommend it to your friends as well, but if you're anything like me you'll find that the stories within have value far beyond simple small talk.
I was introduced to Sum: 40 Tales of the Afterlives through the NPR show RadioLab, which dedicated an entire episode to similar themes as those presented in David Eagleman’s book. Interested to read more I picked up the book on my Kindle and I am glad to say that what I got was a very imaginative and refreshing look at life after death. Eagleman is a neuroscientist who studies "time perception, synesthesia, and how neuroscience will influence the legal system", which makes this even more interesting to read because you wonder how is own studies have affected his creative process.
I highly recommend this book. I think that for the sake of conversation alone you'll want to read through it and recommend it to your friends as well, but if you're anything like me you'll find that the stories within have value far beyond simple small talk.
In truth, God lives a life very much like ours - we were created not only in His image but in His social situation as well. God spends most of His time in pursuit of happiness. He reads books, strives for self-improvement, seeks activities to stave off boredom, tries to keep in touch with fading friendships, wonder if there's something else He should be doing with His time. Over the millennia God has grown bitter. Nothing continues to satisfy. Time drowns Him. He envies man his brief twinkling of a lif, and those He dislikes are condemned to suffer immortality with Him.
If you like that, read the book.
I’d heard this was clever, and was expecting a series of short stories all starting with the theme of the afterlife. But I was disappointed: each chapter was only 2 or 3 short pages, so there was only room to tell, not show, the parameters of a new hypothetical afterlife. So structurally it was doomed to be shallow.
Worse, it doubles down on that shallowness with the afterlife ideas themselves, which feel 90s-ish, sort of basic and boomery, like a less poignant Mitch Albom thing. A male perspective is assumed, and every idea is directly adjacent to the boring, cartoonish American concept of white-toga heaven. “What if the afterlife was sliiightly different from its 1900s American Christian pearly-gate caricature” is just not that interesting of a premise.
I don’t know, maybe I would have liked it more if instead of 40 3-pagers, we got 3 fleshed-out 40-pagers. I loved Pixar’s Soul, and if you squished that vision of the afterlife into 3 pages with no characters it might look something like one of these.
If you do read it - which can easily be done in one sitting - I thought the four best sections were Metamorphosis, Ineffable, Narcissus, and Seed.
Worse, it doubles down on that shallowness with the afterlife ideas themselves, which feel 90s-ish, sort of basic and boomery, like a less poignant Mitch Albom thing. A male perspective is assumed, and every idea is directly adjacent to the boring, cartoonish American concept of white-toga heaven. “What if the afterlife was sliiightly different from its 1900s American Christian pearly-gate caricature” is just not that interesting of a premise.
I don’t know, maybe I would have liked it more if instead of 40 3-pagers, we got 3 fleshed-out 40-pagers. I loved Pixar’s Soul, and if you squished that vision of the afterlife into 3 pages with no characters it might look something like one of these.
If you do read it - which can easily be done in one sitting - I thought the four best sections were Metamorphosis, Ineffable, Narcissus, and Seed.
Eagleman's Sum strings 40 different tales through one question: "what happens after you die?" A few of the stories, (Angst, Prism, Ineffable, Quantum, Search) moved me, some had a bizarre basis but actually provoked a lot of thought (Descent of Species, The Unnatural, Narcissus) and will stick with me whenever this topic comes up with friends, and others were well-written, but felt like they were trying too hard to hit you with a Shyamalan twist. I will be recommending this book to others, and might buy a copy for myself. I rented this, but I could see myself flipping back to some of my favorite stories in the future.
-- Selected Quotes (light spoilers!) --
"The missing crowds make you lonely. You begin to complain about all the people you could be meeting. But no one listens or sympathizes with you, because this is precisely what you chose when you were alive." - "Circle of Friends"
"These reunions reveal a group of individuals touchingly searching for a common theme. They appeal to your name as a unifying structure, but they come to realize that the name that existed on Earth, the you that moved serially through these different identities, was like a bundle of sticks from different trees. They come to understand, with awe, the complexity of the compound identity that existed on the Earth, They conclude with a shudder that the Earthly you is utterly lost, unpreserved in the afterlife. You were all these ages, they concede, and you were none." - "Prism"
"When they feel overwhelmed by their own struggles, they sit down and observe a traffic jam. They watch how each human driver aims for his own private piece of the city, isolated from neighbors by layers of glass and steel." - "Pantheon"
"He is as impressed by the gorgeous biological results as the rest of us, and He often spends slow afternoons drifting through jungle canopies or along the sea floor, reveling in the unexpected beauty." - "Seed"
-- Selected Quotes (light spoilers!) --
"The missing crowds make you lonely. You begin to complain about all the people you could be meeting. But no one listens or sympathizes with you, because this is precisely what you chose when you were alive." - "Circle of Friends"
"These reunions reveal a group of individuals touchingly searching for a common theme. They appeal to your name as a unifying structure, but they come to realize that the name that existed on Earth, the you that moved serially through these different identities, was like a bundle of sticks from different trees. They come to understand, with awe, the complexity of the compound identity that existed on the Earth, They conclude with a shudder that the Earthly you is utterly lost, unpreserved in the afterlife. You were all these ages, they concede, and you were none." - "Prism"
"When they feel overwhelmed by their own struggles, they sit down and observe a traffic jam. They watch how each human driver aims for his own private piece of the city, isolated from neighbors by layers of glass and steel." - "Pantheon"
"He is as impressed by the gorgeous biological results as the rest of us, and He often spends slow afternoons drifting through jungle canopies or along the sea floor, reveling in the unexpected beauty." - "Seed"
I LOVE this book! The forty stories are forty different takes on what the afterlife could be like. They range from bizarre to inhuman to irreverent to deeply spiritual but all of them are thought-provoking. An excellent book from an entertaining genius.
Loved this creative and smart short story collection. Eagleman imagines many versions of the afterlife that all make statements about the varied ways we live and believe. I was just planning to read a few stories but wound up staying up late to read the whole thing. So this will be my book that meets the goal of reading in one sitting.
1. a book published this year
**2. a book you can finish in a day**
3. a book you've been meaning to read
4. a book recommended by your local library or bookseller
5. a book you should have read in school
6. a book chosen for me by a loved one
7. a book published before you were born: 7 Habits
8. a book that was banned at some point
9. a book you own but have never read
10. a book you previously abandoned
11. a book that intimidates you
12. a book you've already read at least once
1. a book published this year
**2. a book you can finish in a day**
3. a book you've been meaning to read
4. a book recommended by your local library or bookseller
5. a book you should have read in school
6. a book chosen for me by a loved one
8. a book that was banned at some point
9. a book you own but have never read
10. a book you previously abandoned
11. a book that intimidates you
12. a book you've already read at least once
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No