Alan P Lightman

In this provocative national bestseller, first-time novelist Lightman takes us back to 1905 and into the dreams of a young patent clerk named Albert Einstein, just as he was completing his theory of relativity. "Lightman lets the reader in on the workings of a creative scientific mind."

"Before the discovery of quarks, we hadn't imagined anything smaller than protons and neutrons. Are quarks the end of the line, the smallest imaginable objects in nature? Can the universe be divided into infinitely smaller units in the same way the universe is ever-expanding? Alan Lightman explores these questions in his characteristic accessible and lyrical prose, considering the igniting element behind consciousness, the origin of life, the anatomy...

"Portrays the struggles of a Cambodian farming family against the extreme patriarchal attitudes of their society and the cruel and dictatorial family father, set against a rural community that is slowly being exposed to the modern world and its values. The book spans the period from 1973, just before the Khmer Rouge genocide, to 2015"--

"There's only one gift Isabel wants for her sixth birthday: a way to see invisible things. She can hardly think of anything else! Finally, the day of her party arrives. Unwrapping a big box, Isabel finds a surprise inside--a glass prism--and a dazzling world of previously invisible color emerges, lighting up the room around her. What else could be out there, waiting for her eyes to discover? In simple, engaging language, complemented by luminous artwork...

"Lightman's grandfather M.A. Lightman was the family's undisputed patriarch: it was his movie theater empire that catapulted the Lightmans to prominence in the South, his fearless success that both galvanized and paralyzed his children and grandchildren. In this ... memoir, the author chronicles his return to Memphis in an attempt to understand the origins he so eagerly left behind forty years earlier. As aging uncles and aunts begin telling family...

"The South is often misunderstood on the national stage, characterized by its struggles with poverty, education, and racism, yet the region has yielded an abundance of undeniably great literature. In Southern Writers on Writing, Susan Cushman collects twenty-six writers from across the South whose work celebrates southern culture and shapes the landscape of contemporary Southern literature. Contributors hail from Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee,...