HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Time Travel by James Gleick
Loading...

Time Travel (original 2016; edition 2016)

by James Gleick (Author)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
8423225,762 (3.54)9
Gleick's story begins at the turn of the twentieth 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 technological--the electric telegraph, the steam railroad, the discovery of buried civilizations, and the perfection of clocks. Gleick tracks the evolution of time travel as an idea in the culture--from Marcel Proust to Doctor Who, from Woody Allen to Jorge Luis Borges. He explores the inevitable looping paradoxes 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.… (more)
Member:waitingtoderail
Title:Time Travel
Authors:James Gleick (Author)
Info:Pantheon (2016), 304 pages
Collections:Read in 2016, Read but unowned
Rating:***
Tags:time travel, literary history, science fiction

Work Information

Time Travel: A History by James Gleick (2016)

Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 9 mentions

English (32)  Spanish (1)  All languages (33)
Showing 1-5 of 32 (next | show all)
A survey of time travel literature alongside a look at how the “science “ evolved along with it. Thoughtful and fun, no intensive understanding of physics needed ( )
  cspiwak | Mar 6, 2024 |
This was a ramble and a half. I wasn't really able to follow much of his line of thought until the middle of the book. I picked it up because I thought it would include more of the science of the time travel. The majority of the book was literary, cultural, and the epistemological search for the nature of time travel.

Glad to have this one in my past. ( )
  ohheybrian | Dec 29, 2023 |
A very thought provoking book. Mr Gleik is quite well read, and exhibits a wide ranging analysis of the idea dwelling in both the Sci-Fi world and that of more formal philosophy, and to some degree, physics. The wide-ranging bibliography contains TV scripts, the cinema, and actual books, by terry Gillam, T.S. Elliot, and of course the originator H.G. Wells. It does bring more examples, counter-arguments, and insights than one might be comfortable with. It does read well. And, one finds in it this interesting definition: "What is time? Things change, and time is how we keep track." ( )
  DinadansFriend | Jun 18, 2023 |
not as good as i’d thought it would be ... very rambling ( )
  austinburns | Dec 16, 2021 |
My favorite parts were about the SF classics, Pulps and HG Wells, next up for me to read By His Bootstraps by Robert A. Heinlein, Gleick devotes a chapter to this SF classic. Then I'd like to find a biography of HG Wells. ( )
  kevn57 | Dec 8, 2021 |
Showing 1-5 of 32 (next | show all)
no reviews | add a review
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Your now is not my now; and again, your then is not my then; but my now may be your then, and vice versa. Whose head is competent to these things?-Charles Lamb (1817)

The fact that we occupy an ever larger place in Time is something that everybody feels. -Marcel Proust (1927?)

And tomorrow Comes. It’s a world. It’s a way. -W.H. Auden (1936)
Dedication
To Beth, Donen, and Harry
First words
A Man stands at the end of a drafty corridor, a.k.a. the nineteenth century, and in the flickering light of an oil lamp examines a machine made of nickel and ivory, with brass rails and quarts rods—a squat, ugly contraption somehow out of focus not easy for the poor reader to visualize, despite the listing of parts and materials.
Quotations
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English

None

Gleick's story begins at the turn of the twentieth 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 technological--the electric telegraph, the steam railroad, the discovery of buried civilizations, and the perfection of clocks. Gleick tracks the evolution of time travel as an idea in the culture--from Marcel Proust to Doctor Who, from Woody Allen to Jorge Luis Borges. He explores the inevitable looping paradoxes 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.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
From the acclaimed author of The Information and Chaos, here is a mind-bending exploration of time travel: its subversive origins, its evolution in literature and science, and its influence on our understanding of time itself.

The 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 and an international sensation: The Time Machine. It was an era when a host of forces was converging to transmute the human understanding of time, some philosophical and some technological: the electric telegraph, the steam railroad, the discovery of buried civilizations, and the perfection of clocks. James Gleick tracks the evolution of time travel as an idea that becomes part of contemporary culture—from Marcel Proust to Doctor Who, from Jorge Luis Borges to Woody Allen. He investigates the inevitable looping paradoxes 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.
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.54)
0.5
1 1
1.5
2 7
2.5 3
3 43
3.5 6
4 45
4.5 5
5 10

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 204,246,002 books! | Top bar: Always visible