Sum by David Eagleman

It took me ages to read this book of forty short stories, because it bent my mind into the kind of shapes you see yogis doing and think, "I wonder whether that's broken, or just dislocated?".

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist and these are his forty musings on the afterlife. In some stories, there's a hint of science, but generally, it's completely fictitious. I first heard about this book when they read one of the stories on RadioLab (possibly you can hear the interview and a couple of stories in the link below (if I've done this right?!) from about 6.37 minutes to 11 minutes and 40 minutes to 43 minutes. Do it.

It's hard to think about being not alive, and in a sense, who cares? but also, who can help but wonder? About 50% of all religious belief systems it seems are focused on this very question - offering followers a kind of insurance/backstage pass kind of thing - and through time we have had amazing musings on the whole thing. I saw some maps at the British Library a few years ago that included these incredible celestial maps that included realms of the afterlife - we're kind of obsessed with it, as a species.

Anyway, so the book: Amazing bite-sized pieces of mind-bending incredible-acious-ness. Ok, I made up that word, maybe, but this guy invented Gods, so making up words kind of seems like a misdemeanor...

Also, I may have found my eulogy. Or yours. Guess it depends who pops 'em first. I'll dog mark the page so you know, just in case.