Einstein's Dreams (Vintage Contemporaries) (10/16/04)

A very interesting book. The chapters leave a lot left open for you to expand upon should you choose. There are three epilogue chapters that all relate to each other, but the rest of the chapters (maybe 30 of them or so?) are only a few pages long and don't relate to each other. It can be tough to wrap your mind around some of the ideas, but once you get it they are very interesting. A great book for upper intermediate to advanced readers.

I first encountered Einstein's Dreams as an audio book borrowed from the public library. Listened to it driving to Miami and really enjoyed it. Decided I had to have it in print and ordered at a very good price through the store. You can read this slim book in a couple of days. The author was very imaginative and many of the dreams have an element of irony. I find this book thoroughly enjoyable in print or audio. Already loaned it out to a friend.

Amazing little book. Makes you think a lot, yet isn't a hard read at all. Can only read a few stories in a sitting, otherwise you don't get to absorb each story very well. Again great book, a must read.

I loved reading this book and pondering each world Lightman created. The chapters, or rather entries in Einsteins dream diary, are very short (2-3 pages), but are written beautifully. Each sentence is simple yet profound, revealing (reminding?) various truths about life, love, time, mortality, purpose...

I completed the book in one sitting, but having gone through each possibility, may decide to go back and re-enter each world with a deeper appreciation for the implications of time. I would highly recommend this book for anyone with a remote inclination towards curiousity, be it of the sciences or the humanities, for in this work of art, they are one.

I first read this book almost twenty years ago and have gone back to it again and again since then. Each chapter envisions a world in which time operates differently. The stories are all thought-provoking and make good public speaking illustrations too.

Full of little vignettes that offer little insights about the ways in which time could exist. Each of these vignettes are dated and very interesting ways of thinking about time. Highly recommended for anyone!

This book is beautifully intriguing. It has been one of my favorites for many years and recently re-ordered due to losing the book. I recommend this novel - it is short but can be read over and over and many of the vignettes allow the reader to drift into much deeper thoughts. Both enlightening and provoking - a must read.

Great e-read for your quick train/bus/tram commute to work, or store the paperback next to the toilet for a great bathroom read. It makes you contemplate about all the lives you've lead alongside total strangers wondering if you've ever really lived at all... Basically this book makes you think in short snippets about the relativity of time and circumstance. So put this book in a place where you can give it 5-10 minutes max at a time. Let 1-2 chapters sink in, then leave the book in a frequented place till you find yourself picking it back up again ;-)

I enjoyed reading a chapter a night of this lovely book and reflecting on how the author came up with such unique ways of describing time passing. Truly unique and entertaining, and impossible to read without leaving you full of wonder.

I started to get interested in time reading a 13th mystic named Dogen's essay "Time Being". Much of our understanding of life revolves around how we relate to time. What is it? How does it relate to the physical world, the spiritual world, the psychological world? Do Past, Present and Future exist as distinct designations? Are they ordered in some linear sequence? Does time pass the same for each of us or even the same moment by moment?

Welcome to the inner world of Einstein as he contemplated the Special Theory of Relativity, or now a little novel of Einstein's Dreams!

How many ways can you imagine "time" -- or the lack thereof? How would you paint an image of a world where time behaves differently than the way we know it? Lightman's descriptions are vivid, eloquent, elegant. Thought-provoking, inspirational, enjoyable.

voice similar to the book of laughter and forgetting by Kundera. philosophical and persuasive the book reads as a dream that explains all that we experience in life. book was in condition described and delivered in time frame quoted.

A collection of well established and clearly defined perspectives towards time given in this book. Something to read over and over again and yet discover new meanings carefully designed by the writer.

I'm finally writing this review nearly twenty years after reading this excellent book. At that time, I was so amazed by both its novelty in fiction and its serious consideration of alternative universes of space-time, I continued to read it over and over up until the recent past. Plus, I've given it to my children and close friends, and recommended Lightman's works to many others, from Maine to Texas.

Thank you, sir, for all these years of stimulation and pleasure.

Who would crave reading this book, at least to the extent it seems to be sought after, if Einstein's name weren't added?
There's something a bit impertinent to about presuming to extend one's mind into a genius's theories and then implying a special understanding of his deepest subconscious. At least there is a veiled assumption of much more "provable" hypotheses.
As a psychiatrist, it borders on hubris in my opinion.

A soft beauty & lightness of touch. Works; is good, but done before. Does for time what Calvino does for cities. But lyrics often fail as novels. Only momentum is pages in the hand. Know what you are, before you sell yourself.

Poetic, beautiful, intelligent, and romantic. This book is a quick worthwhile read for every thinking person who imagines a world beyond their own, and dreams of the possibilities of nature and science.