Reviews
This felt very much like Alan Lightman's "Einstein's Dreams", except that this book's theme is death while Lightman's theme is time. Very good read, some of the stories I will need more time to mull over, while others pop into my head throughout the day and make me smile.
Terrific. The word “Afterlife" in the title might repel cynics but I assure you, it's nothing you'd imagine it to be. And therein lies the appeal of each story. Highly recommend.
Always inspirational to read about all possible versions of the afterlife.
Recommend not reading all at once - just leave it by your bed and do one a day or when you feel like it. Let the mind sink it in.
The kind of book I want to share with everyone I know.
We all wonder what would the afterlife be like... here the author takes it to another level all together. I love the imagination and the various possibilities... all not so perfect and all with loopholes of there own. Anyone who thinks this life is the worse of all worlds... better think again. Very nice read and a thought provoking book.
I enjoy short concise books that talk big concepts. Sum falls in this category and is rather spectacular at it. Each story takes fewer than 2 minutes to read, and yet leaves you baffled and pondering of what could such an afterlife look like. Some parts mythical, some parts secular, all parts innovative; Sum taps on one of the deepest mysteries for mankind - Death. And does so in an almost uplifting way, where one almost becomes curious about the final frontier of our lives. A deeply cathartic and refreshing perspective on one of the darkest subjects we don't discuss enough. Highly recommend!
Small stories about one of the biggest things to happen in life. Full of wonder and very funny, Eagleman's musings about death make you rethink how you're living your life.
Creative stories
Fun and imaginative. The best stories by far were the ones already featured on Radiolab.
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.
liked: sum, circle of friends, mary, the cast.
The tales proclaim themselves as tales. There's so much room — you can interpret each story by yourself. It's dark, genius, funny, and beautiful at the same time. Also, most of the stories make you reexamine life. May my brain stay sane, Haha.
This book...is...AWESOME! Jenny and I saw Eagleman at a lecture at Stanford. We were sufficiently impressed - both by his intellect, and the credibility of his faux-nose. Various run-ins at PF Changs and on BART heightened the intrigue (two words: dragon embroidery). Later, I saw this book at LA Lib's $5-a-bag used book sale, and grabbed it. Good find! The book professes to be about the "afterlife", but to me, it's more like "Many-Worlds, and 39 Other Versions of the Way Things Might Be." So, philosophy. Every version of the world is captured succinctly yet vividly, in a maximum of 4 pages. Refreshing for philosophy, no? I've read some of those Wittgenstein papers...NO GOOD. I'll try not to ruin any of the stories, but my favorite chapters are "Circle of Friends" and "Prism." I'm going to lend this to Jenny, but everyone should read this. Borrow my copy.
Very thought-provoking. But too short: it was hard to stop myself from racing through the book.
