Books by Alan Lightman and Complete Book Reviews

Alan Lightman, Author . Pantheon $23 (231p) ISBN 978-0-375-42167-9
Lightman (Einstein's Dreams, etc.) indulges his romantic side in this fourth novel, coming dangerously close to mawkishness with a tale of an aging professor pining for his lost youth. Charles, 52, teaches literature at a small college; once an...
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman, Author . Pantheon $23 (224p) ISBN 978-0-375-42320-8
Not unlike its author, this collection is difficult to categorize. Lightman, a physicist and author of four acclaimed novels (The Diagnosis was a National Book Award finalist) as well as several books on science, offers essays (some recent, some...
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman, Author . Pantheon $32.50 (553p) ISBN 978-0-375-42168-6
In this enlightening collection, novelist and science writer Lightman (Einstein's Dreams ) has assembled the original works announcing 25 of the world's pioneering scientific breakthroughs, coupling them with original essays to create a...
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman, Author . Pantheon $23 (243p) ISBN 978-0-375-42169-3
In this smartly paced novel from the author of Einstein’s Dreams , a divorced, former banker witnesses a supernatural event, inspiring him to continue the “search for something” that has hovered in the back of his mind throughout...
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman, Author Pantheon Books $23.95 (192p) ISBN 978-0-679-41646-3
Few endeavors are more beguiling than a grossly improbable conceit realized with subtlety and wit. Science writer Lightman ( A Modern Day Yankee in a Connecticut Court ) seems to have mastered this principle: his slender but substantial fictional...
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman, Author Pantheon Books $14 (192p) ISBN 978-0-679-75877-8
Physicist and novelist (Good Benito) Lightman brings his characteristic sense of wonder and awe to these concise discussions of the origins of the universe. Previously published in two collections of the 1980s (Time Travel and Papa Joe's Pipe and A...
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman, Author Warner Books $8.99 (179p) ISBN 978-0-446-67011-1
This beguiling first novel--a 16-week PW bestseller--envisions a series of fables about the nature of time that Einstein might have dreamt while putting the final touches on his theory of relativity. (Feb.)
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman, Author Pantheon Books $25 (384p) ISBN 978-0-679-43615-7
The author of Einstein's Dreams has made a darkly affecting book out of what seems at first to be unpromising material. Bill Chalmers is an executive at an ""information company"" in Boston who on his way to work one day forgets completely who he is,
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman, Author Penguin Books $6.95 (183p) ISBN 978-0-14-009476-3
Lightman, a physicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and a teacher at Harvard, has a flair for explaining the issues and difficult problems of modern astrophyics today. PW was particularly pleased by his ""personal sidelights.'' (Februa
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman, Author Viking Books $14.95 (183p) ISBN 978-0-670-81239-4
Lightman, a physicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and a teacher at Harvard, wrote Time Travel and Papa Joe's Pipea richly readable book of popular science that clearly stands as progenitor or kissing cousin to the present bouquet of
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman, Author Harvard University Press $18.95 (184p) ISBN 978-0-674-03362-7
The Big Bang model of the cosmos assumes a uniform, homogeneous universe, yet we now know that galaxies cluster together. This ``lumpiness'' of matter, along with the peculiar velocities of some galaxies and the superabundance of invisible ``dark...
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman, Author Pantheon Books $21 (215p) ISBN 978-0-679-43614-0
A more prosaic work than his ingenious Einstein's Dreams, Lightman's second novel is a disillusioned bildungsroman about a physicist, Bennett Lang, who ends up discovering how little he knows of the world and its people. Told in self-contained,...
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman. Pantheon, $24.95 (224p) ISBN 978-0-307-37999-3
Physicist and author Lightman (Einstein’s Dreams) offers another rumination in the form of a touching, imaginative rendition of God’s creation of the universe. Bored with the Void, his bickersome Aunt Penelope and tenderhearted Uncle Deva his only...
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman, Author, Alan Lightman, Foreword by Viking Books $20 (144p) ISBN 978-0-670-83976-6
MIT professor Lightman ( Ancient Light ) delivers a short course in astrophysics for lay readers who wonder what astronomers are wondering about. Is the universe finite or endless? Are we alone? Digitized data from powerful radio telescopes have not
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman, Author, Matt Ridley, Editor . Ecco $27.50 (352p) ISBN 978-0-06-093650-1
The 21 articles in this anthology represent the finest works of science journalism from the last year, culled from periodicals like Harper's, the New Yorker, Esquire, Scientific American, Wired and the New York Times. September 11 is a...
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman. Pantheon, $25 (240p) ISBN 978-1-101-87186-7
Novelist and physicist Lightman (The Accidental Universe) mesmerizes in this collection of essays that explores the connections between scientific ideas and the wider world. He sets his stage neatly, with an evocative memory of gazing up at the...
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman. Pantheon, $25 (208p) ISBN 978-1-5247-4901-9
Lightman (Einstein’s Dreams), a physicist and humanities professor at MIT, returns with a wide-ranging collection of 17 essays that explore the place of humans in the cosmos. The entries cover the nature of infinity, the origin of the universe, the “
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman. Pantheon, $26 (208p) ISBN 978-0-593-31741-9
Science and spirituality converge in this probing examination of humanity’s connection to the divine. Physicist Lightman (Probable Impossibilities) contends that “some human experiences are simply not reducible to zeros and ones” and draws on...
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman and Olga Pastuchiv, illus. by Susanna Chapman. MIT Kids and Candlewick, $17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-5362-1561-8
New Yorker Ada, who has brown skin and curly hair, is delighted to arrive at her grandparents’ Maine island house, where clear skies make it possible to view the stars she can’t see in the city. It’s hard to wait for nightfall, though, even when...
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman. Counterpoint, $25 (208p) ISBN 978-1-64009-228-0
Lightman (Einstein’s Dreams) portrays a Cambodian family’s conflicts with precision in this affecting novel told from the perspectives of six characters. In 2012, Ryna, a mother who has struggled with her father’s death during the Khmer Rouge regime,
READ FULL REVIEW
Alan Lightman. Pantheon, $36 (208p) ISBN 978-0-593-70148-5
In this reverent survey, Lightman (The Transcendent Brain), a humanities professor at MIT, delves into the science behind awe-inducing phenomena. Exploring the forces that give rise to glaciers, volcanoes, and other distinctive geological formations,
READ FULL REVIEW
ARTICLES
  • Novel Physics: PW Talks with Alan Lightman
  • The Universe According to Alan Lightman
  • The Universe According to Alan Lightman
  • The Universe According to Alan Lightman
  • X
    Stay ahead with
    Tip Sheet!
    Free newsletter: the hottest new books, features and more
    X
    X
    Email Address

    Password

    Log In Forgot Password

    Premium online access is only available to PW subscribers. If you have an active subscription and need to set up or change your password, please click here.

    New to PW? To set up immediate access, click here.

    NOTE: If you had a previous PW subscription, click here to reactivate your immediate access. PW site license members have access to PW’s subscriber-only website content. If working at an office location and you are not "logged in", simply close and relaunch your preferred browser. For off-site access, click here. To find out more about PW’s site license subscription options, please email Mike Popalardo at: mike@nextstepsmarketing.com.

    To subscribe: click here.