Ghost » (Reprint)

Alan Lightman was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and educated at Princeton and at the California Institute of Technology, where he received a Ph.D. in theoretical physics. An active research scientist in astronomy and physics for two decades, he has also taught both subjects on the faculties of Harvard and MIT. Lightman's novels include Einstein's Dreams, which was an international best seller; Good Benito; The Diagnosis, which was a finalist for the National Book Award; and Reunion. His essays have appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, Nature, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New Yorker, among other publications. He lives in Massachusetts, where he is adjunct professor of humanities at MIT.

A stunning new novel about an ordinary man's encounter with the extraordinary, from the author of Einstein's Dreams.David Kurzweil, a quiet man with modest ambitions, was taking a break at his new job, when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Something no science could explain. Suddenly David's life is changed, and he soon finds himself in the middle of a wild public controversy over the existence of the supernatural. As David searches for an explanation, we embark on a provocative exploration of the delicate divide between the physical and the spiritual, between science and religion as only Alan Lightman could provide. Combining a beautiful narrative with provocative ideas, Ghost investigates timeless questions that continue to challenge the truth as we know it.

The Washington Post - Ron Charles

Ghost is by no means the scariest supernatural tale you could read on Halloween—King is still king—but it may be the smartest, and for that reason it ends up being a hell of a lot more unsettling than a horde of flesh-eating zombies… philosophical questions about the nature of reality hover over all [Lightman's] work…and now in his fifth novel, he concentrates on the most fundamental issues of epistemology without ever using any off-putting terms like, say, "epistemology." Instead, Lightman explores the liminal state between knowledge and belief in an eerily quiet ghost story…These are heavy questions, to be sure, the kind of philosophical conundrums that might fuel a provocative all-night discussion in the dorm but usually doom a novel. The salvation here is Lightman's graceful touch and his tender insight into David's plight.