This book landed in our laps at exactly the right time. My husband and I took turns reading the short afterlives to each other during a weekend getaway.
I first learned about this book’s existence from Derek Sivers. I didn’t pick it up though—my “to be read” list will always require more reading time than I will ever have.
One weekend early July, my husband and I rented an Airbnb an hour away. We promised each other that we would use our devices only to do things together—look up places to eat, watch a movie together, etc. No email. No messages. No phone calls. Definitely no social media.
I never truly notice how much time I spend on my phone and laptop until I’m not able to. Sure, my phone gives me a weekly update on how much screen time I’ve had, but I don’t really look at that. (Do you?) I poked around the bookshelves of the Airbnb and discovered that Rob and I shared similar interests with the owners, and sticking out slightly from its neighbors was “Sum.”
It’s a slim volume packed to the brim with imaginative answers to a single question: What happens after we die? Curious, I pulled it out and began reading at the beginning. It begins with the titular story, ”Sum.”
In the afterlife you relive all your experiences, but this time with the events reshuffled into a new order: all the moments that share a quality are grouped together.
David Eagleman, “Sum”
I was hooked.
I started reading it aloud to Rob. Together, we read at least 30 of the 40 stories that weekend, and finished the rest at home. The short-form stories were perfect for reading to each other: Most of the stories took just about five minutes to read to each other, and they were so interesting, we had plenty to talk about after.
In “Sum,” we see just what it might mean that God created humankind in His/Her own image, what that means for the afterlife, and what that means for how we live our lives. This is one of those rare books that benefits from a being read again… and again… and again.