The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine, Alan Lightman

Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine

Alan Lightman

Critic Reviews

Good

Based on 8 reviews on

BookMarks logo
From the bestselling author of Einstein's Dreams--"an elegant and moving paean to our spiritual quest for meaning in an age of science" (The New York Times Book Review). - The basis for the public television series SEARCHING with Alan Lightman.

As a physicist, Alan Lightman has always held a scientific view of the world. But one summer evening, while looking at the stars from a small boat at sea, Lightman was overcome by the overwhelming sensation that he was merging with something larger than himself--an eternal unity, something absolute and immaterial.

The result is an inspired, lyrical meditation from the acclaimed author of Einstein's Dreams that explores these seemingly contradictory impulses. Lightman draws on sources ranging from Saint Augustine's conception of absolute truth to Einstein's theory of relativity, and gives us a profound inquiry into the human desire for truth and meaning, and a journey along the different paths of religion and science that become part of that quest. This small but provocative book explores the tension between our yearning for certainty and permanence versus the modern scientific view that all things in the physical world are uncertain and impermanent.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Vintage
  • Publish Date: Feb 19th, 2019
  • Pages: 240
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 7.90in - 5.10in - 0.90in - 0.55lb
  • EAN: 9780525432593
  • Categories: Philosophy & Social AspectsMetaphysicsMovements - Phenomenology

More books to explore

Book Cover for: The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality, William Egginton
Book Cover for: Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions, Sabine Hossenfelder
Book Cover for: The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes--And Its Implications, David Deutsch
Book Cover for: The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism, Fritjof Capra
Book Cover for: In Light-Years There's No Hurry: Cosmic Perspectives on Everyday Life, Marjolijn Van Heemstra
Book Cover for: The Allure of the Multiverse: Extra Dimensions, Other Worlds, and Parallel Universes, Paul Halpern
Book Cover for: There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness: And Other Thoughts on Physics, Philosophy and the World, Carlo Rovelli
Book Cover for: Phenomenology of Spirit, G. W. F. Hegel
Book Cover for: Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View, Richard Tarnas
Book Cover for: The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself, Sean Carroll
Book Cover for: Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe, Brian Greene
Book Cover for: The Possibility of Life: Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos, Jaime Green
Book Cover for: The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard
Book Cover for: The Phenomenon of Man, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Book Cover for: Being and Time, Martin Heidegger

About the Author

ALAN LIGHTMAN is the author of seven novels, including the international best seller Einstein's Dreams and The Diagnosis, a finalist for the National Book Award. He has taught at Harvard and at MIT, where he was the first person to receive a dual faculty appointment in science and the humanities. He is the host of the public television series Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science. He is a professor of the practice of the humanities at MIT.

More books by Alan Lightman

Book Cover for: The Shape of Wonder: How Scientists Think, Work, and Live, Alan Lightman
Book Cover for: Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman
Book Cover for: The Miraculous from the Material: Understanding the Wonders of Nature, Alan Lightman
Book Cover for: The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science, Alan Lightman
Book Cover for: ADA and the Galaxies, Alan Lightman
Book Cover for: The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 20th-Century Science, Including the Original Papers, Alan Lightman
Book Cover for: Probable Impossibilities: Musings on Beginnings and Endings, Alan Lightman
Book Cover for: Cerebro Trascendente, El, Alan Lightman
Book Cover for: In Praise of Wasting Time, Alan Lightman
Book Cover for: Isabel and the Invisible World, Alan Lightman
Book Cover for: Dance for Two: Essays, Alan Lightman
Book Cover for: A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit, Alan Lightman
Book Cover for: Screening Room: A Memoir of the South, Alan Lightman
Book Cover for: Ghost, Alan Lightman
Book Cover for: Reunion, Alan Lightman
Book Cover for: Future of Spacetime, Stephen Hawking

Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

"An elegant and moving paean to our spiritual quest for meaning in an age of science." --The New York Times Book Review

"Delightful. . . [Lightman's] elegant and evocative prose draws in the reader." --The Wall Street Journal

"Once again, this deft wordsmith has effortlessly straddled the divide between the hardest of the hard sciences and the nebulous world of existential doubts and longings." --Nature

"A lyrical and illuminating inquiry. . . . [Emerges] with that rare miracle of insight at the meeting point of the lucid and the luminous." --Brain Pickings

"Contemplative, elegant and open-minded, [Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine] is an engaging companion to understanding our longing for connection with the infinite." --Charleston Post and Courier

"This is a volume meant for savoring, for readerly ruminations, for thinking about and exploring one essay at a time. Lightman's illuminating language and crisp imagery aim to ignite a sense of wonder in any reader who's ever pondered the universe, our world, and the nature of human consciousness." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"An illuminating, deeply human book." --Booklist

"Lightman's artful and questioning narrative style easily conveys complex concepts from physics to philosophy. Both believers and nonbelievers will find much to ponder in this discussion of science and religion, which reads like a soothing meditation." --Library Journal