Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives
At once funny, wistful and unsettling, Sum is a dazzling exploration of unexpected afterlives—each presented as a vignette that offers a stunning lens through which to see ourselves in the here and now. In one afterlife, you may find that God is the size of a microbe and unaware of your...
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At once funny, wistful and unsettling, Sum is a dazzling exploration of unexpected afterlives—each presented as a vignette that offers a stunning lens through which to see ourselves in the here and now. In one afterlife, you may find that God is the size of a microbe and unaware of your existence. In another version, you work as a background character in other people’s dreams. Or you may find that God is a married couple, or that the universe is running backward, or that you are forced to live out your afterlife with annoying versions of who you could have been. With a probing imagination and deep understanding of the human condition, acclaimed neuroscientist David Eagleman offers wonderfully imagined tales that shine a brilliant light on the here and now.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780307389930 (0307389936)
Publish date: January 12th 2010
Publisher: Vintage
Pages no: 110
Edition language: English
Category:
Fantasy,
Writing,
Essays,
Science Fiction,
Book Club,
Adult,
Religion,
Philosophy,
Psychology,
Short Stories,
Death
I think I enjoyed this book much more the way I read it. That is, I would read a couple of stories and leave it alone for days or weeks (as I tend to do with other books) and then I read a couple more chapters. In this book's case it made it more enjoyable.I loved most of the stories, although I adm...
There's better I say about SUM beyond that it is an amazing, thought provoking piece of work which draws on both spirituality and metaphysics (with a dash of religion, too) to comprise it's work. What we have here is 40 very short stories, each relating a conceptual idea of Heaven or another form ...
A little gem, the slower you read it the better.
Sum is a collection of 40 essays about what the Afterlife might look like. For example, in his title story Sum, everyone gets a chance to relive their lives, except with a different order, where similar activities are grouped together. So, you would spend 10 years straight just sleeping, or 5 days...
This is the second time I've read this book. The first time I heard about it was just after it was published. The book was mentioned on BBC Radio 4 and I was sufficiently intrigued to buy it. I have just re-read it for my book group. The short stories that comprise the book are clever, occasiona...
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