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TIME TRAVEL

James Gleick

From the acclaimed author of The Information and Chaos, a mind-bending exploration of the time travel: its subversive origins, its evolution in literature and science, and its influence on our understanding of time itself.
Gleick's story begins at the turn of the previous century with the young H. G. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book, an international sensation, The Time Machine. A host of forces were converging to transmute the human understanding of time, some philosophical and some technologicalthe electric telegraph, the steam railroad, the dis- covery of buried civilizations, and the perfection of clocks. Gleick tracks the evolution of time travel as an idea in the culturefrom Marcel Proust to Doc- tor Who, from Woody Allen to Jorge Luis Borges. He delves into the inevitable looping para- doxes and examines the porous boundary between pulp fiction and modern physics. Finally, he delves into a temporal shift that is unsettling our own moment: the instantaneous wired world, with its all-consuming present and vanishing future. James Gleick is our leading chronicler of science and modern technology. His first book, Chaos, a National Book Award finalist, has been translated into twenty-five languages, and his best-selling biographies, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman and Isaac Newton, were short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize. Most recently, he is the author of The Information which was a New York Times bestseller.
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Published 2016-10-01 by Pantheon

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Isaac Newton's biographer takes a smart, scholarly look at this science fiction staple. With a little help from Gleick, you might finally understand Interstellar.

Time Travel is another of James Gleick’s superb, unclassifiable books—rich in obscure and illuminating information, laced with lyricism, wit, and startling and convincing insights. It is an exploration not only of the (theoretical) phenomenon of time travel but of our understanding of ‘time’ itself.

TV rights have also been optioned by documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock (SUPER SIZE ME) with plans to develop a multi-part TV series.

Like [David Foster] Wallace, Gleick's a wide-ranging enthusiast and a graceful explainer. . . . One of the great charms of this book is its author's willingness to embrace multiple points of view and to credit art and experience as much as theory.

A dazzling voyage through the concept of time…Deeply philosophical and full of quirky humor…Gleick’s journey through the fourth dimension is a marvelous mind bender.

An engaging and entertaining look at science that will always remain fiction. It's lucidly written, a breeze to read and erudite in assessing a vast range of literary and popular media treatments of time travel as dream and desire.

Extraordinary. . . . Ultimately, Time Travel centers around a single question: Why do we need time travel? To find the answer, Gleick brilliantly stitches together moments at seemingly disparate points in history: He goes from explaining the plot of an episode of Doctor Who in one sentence to revisiting the invention of the Cinématographe in 1890s France the next. But what could be a dizzying narrative is deftly handled. And that's because Gleick's adventure in time travel is, in the end, not about distinctions between past and future, but a love letter to 'the unending now.'

James Gleick is a master historian of ideas—no one else can do what he does. Synthesis leads to elucidation leads to stunning, original insight. Time Travel, like so much of his work, is simply indispensable.

In Time Travel, James Gleick provides an absorbing history of the idea, eloquently elucidating the reasons for its enduring appeal. . . . Within physics, Gleick captures some of the intellectual ferment in his account of the debate about whether time is an illusion. Within literature, he's particularly incisive in his account of alternative histories, which originated as an accident of time travel.

UK: Fourth Estate ; China: Posts & Telecom Press ; Spain: Critica ; Korea: East-Asia ; Romania: Publica ; Russia: MIF ; Brazil: DarkSide ; Greece: Travlos ; Italy: Codice ; Poland: Zysk I Ska ; Taiwan: China Times ; Japan: Kashiwa Shobo ; Turkey: Koc University Press

A grand thought experiment, using physics and philosophy as the active agents, and literature as the catalyst. . . . What emerges is an inquiry, the most elegant since Borges, into why we think about time, why its directionality troubles us so, and what asking these questions at all reveals about the deepest mysteries of human consciousness and about what Gleick so beguilingly calls 'the fast-expanding tapestry of interwoven ideas and facts that we call our culture.

A pleasurable romp over Wells's fourth dimension and polished Victorian machinery.

TIME TRAVEL: A History – James Gleick – Editor’s Choice

A fascinating mash-up of philosophy, literary criticism, physics and cultural observation. It’s witty . . . pithy . . . and regularly manages to twist its reader’s mind . . . . Throughout the book [Gleick] displays an acute and playful sensitivity to how quickly language gets slippery when we talk about time . . . a wonderful reminder that the most potent time-traveling technology we have is also the oldest technology we have: storytelling. Read more...

Fascinating. . . . Gleick's hybrid of history, literary criticism, theoretical physics, and philosophical meditation is itself a time-jumping, head-tripping odyssey, and it works so well. Even though Gleick can elucidate complex ideas into accessible language, he's even better at explicating notions thatremain perplexing. . . . Time Travel is as elegant and eloquent as it is edifying.

TIME TRAVEL has been picked as one of The Guardian's best books on the subject of time - The Time Machine is just the starting point for Gleick's joyous and engrossing survey of our species' preoccupation with the (entirely impossible) possibility of time travel. Cyberspace, time capsules, predestination; Dr. Who, Parmenides, Nabokov - Gleick is at home in every intellectual territory. Essential reading for those wanting to understand why the present is no longer enough for us. Read more...

Against Kingsley Amis’ skeptical assertion that ‘time travel is inconceivable,’ Gleick adduces impressive evidence that the phenomenon has tantalized novelists, philosophers, poets, scientists, moviemakers, and even cartoonists as a transformative possibility. Readers follow the fictional ‘Time Traveler’ that H. G. Wells sends into future centuries; track the gyrations of time-spanning thought that Borges unfolds in his labyrinthine tales; ponder the temporal cause-effect paradoxes that Bertrand Russel surmounts; and puzzle over the reversibility of time in the physics with which Einstein revolutionized science….Ultimately, readers discern behind the modern mania for the phenomenon a human craving for immortality that—particularly in a secular age—fosters this mania. Both piquant and profound.

Having had the benefit of a time machine on this one, I can assure you that in @JamesGleick's Time Travel you await a wonderful future read. Read more...

Illuminating and entertaining. . . . There isn't a paragraph in Gleick's book without good sentences and fascinating information.

Magnificent. A riveting history of an idea that changed us so profoundly, we forgot we had even been changed. But Gleick remembers.

A bracing swim in the waters of science, technology and fiction.

Mind-blowing. . . . A fascinating argument that the most important time is the present.

In his enthralling new book, James Gleick mounts H.G. Wells’s time machine for an invigorating ride through the most baffling of the four dimensions. In these pages, time flies.

Far ranging, accessible, and witty, Time Travel tackles its elusive subject from unusual angles but with fine-tuned focus. . . . Knowledgeable, curious and humane, Gleick proves to be the perfect tour guide for this mind-bending intellectual expedition into the past, present and future.

A brilliant, wise, insightful and mind-boggling look at the nature of time.

From Wells to Schrödinger to Twitter, [Gleick] doesn’t miss a beat, and he imparts a wry appreciation for humorous detail, making him one of the most enjoyable science writers in the field….Another fantastic contribution…from Gleick, whose lush storytelling will appeal to a wide range of audiences.

Exhilarating. . . . A veritable theme park of playful attractions, which Mr. Gleick explores with infectious gusto.

Gleick returns with something that will appeal to lovers of science fiction as well. Read more...