Book Recommendation: Time’s Arrow By Martin Amis

I just read “Time’s Arrow” by Martin Amis and I am very pleased. Sean Carroll (very clever cosmologist/physicist/science communicator) recommended it as  an interesting portrayal of how we expect time to work by turning it backward in the experience of the protagonist’s life. Every moment is lived end to beginning, and cause-and-effect and entropy become more obvious in their reversal.

 

I won’t say too much about the life of the protagonist because even though I think his story is very compelling on its own and would be a great read in the usual chronology, I don’t want to give too much away, and also I think my favourite part of the book is how deftly the writer puts us in a story in reverse and would have been excellent with many different plots. I’ve never read anything like it.

It’s a short novel, only 165 pages or so, nice and quick, and the novelty of watching a life in reverse was very fun despite some of the darker experiences.
Enjoy!

SJ