Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives
Cover of the book SUM by David Eagleman
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| Author | David Eagleman |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Pantheon Books |
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Publication date
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10 Feb 2009 |
| Media type | Print Hardback, Paperback, Audio, e-book |
| Pages | 107 (Hardback, 2009) |
| ISBN | (Hardcover, 2009) |
| OCLC | 228676738 [1] |
| 813/.6 22 | |
| LC Class | PS3605.A375 S86 2009 |
Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, also simply called Sum, is a work of speculative fiction by the neuroscientist David Eagleman. It is in press in 28 languages as of 2016[update]. The Los Angeles Times described it as "teeming, writhing with imagination." Barnes and Noble named it one of the Best Books of 2009.
As a short story cycle, the book presents forty mutually exclusive stories staged in a wide variety of possible afterlives. The author has stated that none of the stories is meant to be taken as serious theological proposals but, instead, that the message of the book is the importance of exploring new ideas beyond the ones that have been traditionally passed down.
The title word "Sum" refers to the Latin for "I am," as in Cogito ergo sum.
Like Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, Sum does not fit entirely into the traditional category of a novel. Sum has been called "philosofiction", an "experimental novel", and "a collection of thought experiments". Most of the stories are understood to "posit the afterlife as mirroring life on Earth"
The New York Times Book Review called Sum a "delightful, thought-provoking little collection [which] belongs to that category of strange, unclassifiable books that will haunt the reader long after the last page has been turned".Sum was chosen by Time Magazine for their 2009 Summer Reading list, with the acclaim "Eagleman is a true original. Read Sum and be amazed. Reread Sum and be reamazed.".Sum was selected as Book of the Week by both The Guardian and The Week, and was the featured subject on the cover of two magazines in 2009, The Big Issue and Humanitie. On September 10, 2009, Sum was ranked by Amazon as the #2 bestselling book in the United Kingdom.
The book received accolades from non-religious reviewers as well as from the religious community. The recommendations of Stephen Fry, Philip Pullman, Brian Greene, Brian Eno, and others appear on the cover, and Sum was named as one of the Best Spiritual Books of 2009.
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