Einstein's Dreams

In this book, Alan Lightman presents various scenarios of what time could be like and how it would affect society, all in a form of Einstein's dreams. The premise is definitely original and Lightman's prose is beautiful, but the novelty soon wore off and I got bored. It took me a pretty long time to read a tiny book light this for this very reason.

I must admit, I did like some of the stories, but almost all of them had a similar problem - the people's reactions to the environments they lived in were very strange. Sure, we don't know how people would behave in a world where time is non-linear, for instance, or a world where time goes backwards, but some of author's proposed societal structures seem the opposite from what you'd expect intuitively. I also feel like the subjects are not explored to their full potential.

Another important aspect is a lack of emotional impact the stories have on me. Although the stories are interesting theoretically, the execution is rather dry.