After Lives

I've just finished reading David Eagleman's guide to the afterlife. Or make that afterlives. His book Sum presents forty tales from the afterlives - each one a quirkly, delightful haiku-like meditation on what the afterlife might be like. Or not, as the case may be.

You get to meet God as a microbe, God as a Goddess, God as a fan of Mary Shelley ... and a great cast of others - including yourself ;-)

I cam across David in the course of a fascinating WNYC Radiolab podcast on the very subject of After Life. You can listen to some of his forty tales during the podcast. Or just read Great Expectations and Descent of the Species for a flavour of what I mean. And never, ever wish you were a horse ...

The genius of Sum is its simplicity - though perhaps simplicity is the essence of all genius. It's a glorious little book, one that leaves you thinking less about the after life and more about this life and how extraordinary it really is.

I must read it again soon.