Title: Sum: Forty Tales of the Afterlives
Author: David Eagleman
Genre: Modern Fiction / Philosophy
Pages: 128
Rating (out of 5 stars): *****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: David Eagleman, a neuroscientist, writes 40 different vignettes of what the afterlife might be like. In one version, you re-live your life but with events grouped together so that you sleep for 30 years straight, spend 200 days in the shower, five months on the toilet, and so forth. In another, you find out that God created humanity but then lost control and is farming out the work of managing people's lives to individuals who have passed away. Each chapter is only 2-3 pages long.
Thoughts: I really loved this book. It is amazing how much the afterlife can teach you about THIS life, and Eagleman does a really amazing job of delivering a new insight or deep thought in an incredibly creative way by forcing you to consider what each type of afterlife would be like. What if in the afterlife you were stuck in a room until no one remembered you any longer? How would that change how you behave? I found myself underling the last couple of paragraphs in nearly every single chapter, finding new thoughts that made me think about how I'm living. Eagleman's book was so good not because he writes about what the afterlife will actually be like, but because each different afterlife made me thing about what my current life is all about.
Disclaimer: None.
1 comment:
I'm adding this book to my own list. It doesn't sound like the type of book that I would normally pick up, but your review has intrigued me.
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