Reviews for Sum

“Eagleman is a true original. Read Sum and be amazed. Reread it and be reamazed.” – Time Magazine

“SUM is terrific. 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.” – Philip Pullman, author of The Golden Compass

“This delightful, thought-provoking little collection belongs to that category of strange, unclassifiable books that will haunt the reader long after the last page has been turned. It is full of tangential insights into the human condition and poetic thought experiments…. It is also full of touching moments and glorious wit of the sort one only hopes will be in copious supply on the other side.” – Alexander McCall Smith, New York Times Book Review

“This little book is teeming, writhing with imagination.” – Los Angeles Times

“As rigorous and imaginative as the writings of Italo Calvino and Alan Lightman, each vignette is a glimpse into an expansive topic such as time, faith or memory” – Nature

“David Eagleman’s SUM envisions a multiplicity of afterlives: pasts relived in shuffle mode, cast in the dreams of others, and dictated by our credit card reports” – Vanity Fair

“Reading this beautiful book is like pulling back the fabric of reality and peeping behind — life and death will never seem the same again.” – New Scientist

“Imaginative and inventive.” – Wall Street Journal

“Reading John Updike you may feel utterly incapable of coming up with such wonderful stuff yourself but, by a process of envious extrapolation, you still have a sense of how he managed to do it. Eagleman is a neuroscientist, that must have helped, but Sum has the unaccountable, jaw-dropping quality of genius.” – Geoff Dyer, The Observer

“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.” –Texas Monthly

“Wow.” – The New York Observer

“Bracing, provocative, fun… it challenges and teases as it spins out different parables of possibility.” – Houston Chronicle

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“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

“It takes someone ridiculously smart to write something as deceptively simple as SUM.” – Denver Daily News

“A small gem of a book…. Who’d have thought that a young neuroscientist would have so much story in him?” – The Globe and Mail

“A disarming, splendid little book…. Eagleman packs in an afterlife’s worth of possibilities, all intriguing and extraordinarily well-written, and most tinged with a beguiling gentleness, humor and optimism…. It made my heart light” – Dallas Morning News

“Witty, bright, sharp and unexpected… as surprising a book as I’ve read for years.” – Brian Eno

“The new God plot that’s seduced top pop, literary and science figures” – The Big Issue magazine

“In Sum, Texas neuroscientist and writer David Eagleman takes the subject head on, conjuring up 40 possible versions of the afterlife…. This is a scientist and exceptionally talented writer using the idea of the afterlife to reflect on our innermost fears and desires and also as a way of dissecting how we live.” – Tampa Tribune

“Imaginative riffs that are simultaneously improvisational and well-considered…. [Eagleman] doesn’t intend his suggestions to be serious, but merely wants to challenge you to leave well-traveled paths of belief and think in bold, new ways.” – Arizona Republic

“A neuroscientist translates lofty concepts of infinity and death into accessible human terms…. Eagleman’s turned out a well-executed and thought-provoking book.” – Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“Eagleman has called himself a possibilian, and while he acknowledges that each of his tales is equally improbable, this act of imagination is so rich — funny, touching, revelatory — that life and death both seem wondrous.” – Manhattan Users Guide

“These images of the Great Beyond are more complex, sometimes whimsical, always veering off in an unexpected direction. In total they present a realm where you are certain to learn something about the life you just left behind.” –Deseret News

“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