From the Bookshelf of A Brief Reading…

Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives

David Eagleman

Start date: February 15, 2016

Finish date: March 14, 2016

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Nov 20, 2015 H rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: death, short-stories, sci-fi, humor, philosophy, disappointing, adult, religion-spirituality, existentialism, 2015

I really, really disliked this book (in case the stellar rating did not tip you off). Something about it just did not work with me. I think my biggest problem is that I went into this with a specific idea about what it was and it turned out to be very different from what I expected. Expectations, man. And some misleading reviews.

I know 'Sum' is short, but I wanted my tales--even if they were a page or two each. Where did they go? The stuff in here? Not exactly what you'd call tales. They're mor ...more

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Feb 15, 2016 Brooke rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories, 2016-books, literary-fiction

While reading this collection, I likely would have rated it a 4 star read. After the fact and a couple of weeks removed, I'm going with the rather average 3 star rating. Because nothing much has stuck with me since finishing.

I enjoyed the various interesting afterlife scenarios. The reading experience gave me so much to ponder and imagine. Would work really well as an active buddy read or book club discussion. But ultimately, two to three pages a story just didn't give me enough to hold on to - ...more

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Nov 22, 2015 Sarah rated it liked it

There were some hard hitters in this short story collection (God & Mary Shelly and the Ancient Gods being trapped in hell) which left the rest of the stories falling a little bit short.

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