Sum: Forty Tales From The Afterlives by David Eagleman - Fiction - Paperback

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Details. Condition: New. Format: Paperback. ISBN: 9781847674272. Publisher: Canongate Books. Overview. Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives is a dazzlingly inventive collection of short fiction from neuroscientist and bestselling author David Eagleman. In just over a hundred pages, Eagleman imagines forty entirely different versions of what might await us after death, each a miniature parable exploring identity, memory, morality and the strange nature of being human. Playful, unsettling and endlessly inventive, this slim paperback has become a modern classic of speculative short fiction.. About the Book. What happens to us when we die? David Eagleman doesn't offer a single answer — he offers forty. In one afterlife, God turns out to be the size of a microbe, entirely unaware of your existence. In another, you are split into every age you've ever been, living simultaneously as your five-year-old and eighty-year-old self. Elsewhere, the afterlife is populated only by the people you actually remembered while alive, meaning some souls are crowded with company and others are nearly alone. Some tales are rebuilt from your credit-card records; others force you to live alongside every version of yourself that you might have become. Each vignette is short — most just two or three pages — yet lands with the precision of a fable, using the afterlife as a lens to examine free will, consciousness, love, regret and what it means to be alive. Eagleman's background as a neuroscientist gives the collection an unusual rigour beneath its whimsy. The result is a book that can be read cover to cover in an evening or dipped into one tale at a time, each visit rewarding readers with a new angle on mortality and meaning.. Forty distinct, bite-sized tales — ideal for short reading sessions or discussion. Blends neuroscience-informed ideas with genuinely imaginative storytelling. Written by an internationally bestselling scientist-author. Perfect for philosophy lovers, book clubs, and fans of speculative short fiction. Compact paperback format, easy to carry and re-read. A thoughtful gift for curious, reflective readers. About the Author. David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Stanford University, an internationally bestselling author, and a Guggenheim Fellow. He wrote and presented The Brain, an Emmy-nominated PBS/BBC series exploring what it means to be human from a neuroscientific perspective. His research spans time perception, vision, synesthesia and the intersection of neuroscience with the legal system. Eagleman is also the author of Livewired, Incognito, and The Runaway Species, and hosts the chart-topping science podcast Inner Cosmos.. Why You'll Love This Paperback. Compact, clever and quietly profound, this paperback turns big questions about mortality into short, memorable stories you'll want to reread and share with others long after the final page.. Please Note: Cover design may vary slightly from the image shown; you will receive the UK paperback edition with UK ISBN 9781847674272.