Sum http://www.fishpond.com.au/Books/Sum-David-Eagleman/9780307377340

Forty Tales from the Afterlives

By David Eagleman

Reviews

Neuroscientist Eagleman's (www.eagleman.com) highly acclaimed 2009 story collection features 40 brief imaginings about mortality and immortality, the meaning of life and death, beginnings and endings, and the nature of God and the cosmos. Some are witty, others are whimsical; all are glimpses into the maelstrom of human hopes and fears. A dozen top-notch narrators including Brian Eno, Miranda Richardson, Dominic West, Stephen Fry, and the author provide a variety of reading styles. Small bites of food for thought light enough for very short commutes and ideal for lovers of literary fiction, philosophy, or metaphysics.-Janet Martin, Southern Pines P.L., NC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

"Imaginative and inventive."
"--Wall Street Journal"
"This little book is teeming, writhing with imagination."
--"Los Angeles Times"
"With both a childlike sense of wonder and a trenchant flair for irony, the Baylor College of Medicine neuroscientist generously offers forty variations on the theme of God and the afterlife, imagining what each of us might find when we shuffle off this mortal coil.... Sum is great fun--sort of a brainy parlor game in print--and a modest satire aimed at zealots who define heaven and God to serve their own ends. It is also a reminder that when it comes to our knowledge of the hereafter, we have loads of faith but not a scintilla of proof."
"--Texas Monthly"
"Witty, bright, sharp and unexpected... as surprising a book as I've read for years." --Brian Eno
"David Eagleman's SUM is a captivating collection of vignettes that portray possible afterlives-creatively conceived and deftly described. Each tale imagines an unexpected reality that might await us, possible worlds that illuminate life with colors rarely encountered."
--Brian Greene, author of "The Elegant Universe
""SUM is terrific. It's such a good idea that I was grinding my teeth all the way through wishing I'd thought of it first. The inventiveness, the clarity and wit of the prose, the calm air of moral understanding that pervades the whole thing, add up to something completely original. I hope SUM will be the great big hit it deserves to be."
--Philip Pullman, author of "The Golden Compass"
"A clever little book by a neuroscientist translates lofty concepts of infinity and death into accessible human terms. What happens after we die? Eagleman wonders ineach of these brief, evocative segments. Are we consigned to replay a lifetime's worth of accumulated acts, as he suggests in 'Sum, ' spending six days clipping your nails or six weeks waiting for a green light? Is heaven a bureaucracy, as in 'Reins, ' where God has lost control of the workload? Will we download our consciousnesses into a computer to live in a virtual world, as suggested in 'Great Expectations, ' where 'God exists after all and has gone through great trouble and expense to construct an afterlife for us'? Or is God actually the size of a bacterium, battling good and evil on the 'battlefield of surface proteins, ' and thus unaware of humans, who are merely the 'nutritional substrate'? Mostly, the author underscores in 'Will-'o-the-Wisp, ' humans desperately want to matter, and in afterlife search out the 'ripples left in our wake.' Eagleman's turned out a well-executed and thought-provoking book."
--"Publishers Weekly" (Starred Review)
"SUM is an imaginative and provocative book that gives new perspectives on how to view ourselves and our place in the world."
--Alan Lightman, author of "Einstein's Dreams"