Rating: 
Summary: Lightman Enlightens
Review: Simply put, what a great book. It is one of the best books I've read ever, at the same time, it is one of the best written, clearly explained texts. Einstein is lucky to have an author, such as Lightman, interpreting or translating his concepts. The physics, the ideas, everything was in harmony here. The downside? I felt that there were two or three chapters where it "seemed" as if the book had run out of ways to explain relativity. But what do I know? I'm no Einstein.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful and Brilliant
Review: This book was wonderful. It is a very light and happy book that makes one wonder about the nature of time and the human soul. I recommend this book for someone who spends too much time reading serious novels.
Rating:
Summary: a great afternoon read
Review: Although this book can be completed in one day, it was great. The book doesn't really have a plot, but tells 30 (3-6) page stories (dreams, really) on different variations of time and how this world could have been instead. The "intermissions" scattered between the dreams are conversations between Einstein and his buddy Musso. This book was so great that I am gonna buy 'Einstein for Beginners'!
Rating:
Summary: Interesting read
Review: There's nothing profound or life-changing here, and it's got little to do with Einstein, really. What it is: diverting, interesting, whimsical, poetic... a quick read, and a lovely one at that.
Rating: 
Summary: Amusing but slight.
Review: If you're familiar with Steven Millhauser, Lightman's writing style doesn't have any surprises in it. Although Lightman's book is enjoyable, it lacks the resonance and depth that Millhauser's work has. The thoughts on time meander and leisurely move along in prose-poem fashion. However, the thoughts merely skim the surface and Lightman doesn't seem interested in delving more deeply into his material. The overall effect is amusing, but slight, much like this review.
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Summary: Fabulous for the "non-scientific" romantic!
Review: This book was given to me as a gift by a friend who is a professor of physics. I have read the book 4 times, and bought innumerable copies to give to friends. My "test" of a new love interest is to give him this book: if he loves it, he's a possibility; if not, I keep looking. Thank you, Alan Lightman
Rating:
Summary: A relatively good little book
Review: Mr. Lightman enlightens us with new perspective about the nature of time. He proposes various worlds in which time assumes uncoventional properties and then he hypothesizes about the shape of such universes. I was genuinely intrigued by his innovative presentation on a subject which affects us all. How we see time's passage is relative and even subjective. And yet we tend to see it as a linear progression structured by clockworks. The human portrait of Einstein's life in Berne as a patent clerk before he became famous was quite vivid and a natural backdrop for Lightman's inventive what-if scenarios on time. You will never see time solely as a mechanical linear progression again after reading this accessible and easy-to-read book: I only wished the author had been more generous with a somewhat longer work. Certainly, the small portion he offers is rich and dense with meaning on a most timely subject.
Rating: 
Summary: A Poor Excuse For a Bestseller
Review: I gave this book one star because there was no zero star option. After reading Lightman's book I found myself asking the question that many writers ask themselves after writing a review "So what has the author said?" I was terribly dissapointed to see the lavish praise on the book when I looked up the Amazon reviews.The book sells simply becasause readers want to feel as if they are smart -- a Good Will Hunting-type syndrome -- they think they are on a par with the intellect of Einstein. Do not misunderstand me -- I personally have much reverance for Einstein, and have studied him at great length. There are only a handful of people in the world who can fully understand the theory of relativity, and yet people will read "Einstein's Dream," especially after Time's Man of the Century nomination To sum up, the liberal art's major (like Lightman himself: MIT scientist turned Renaissance Man) will thoroughly "enjoy" the book and ""understand"" it and show off their """expert""" knowledge to everybody they know. If you want to learn about Einstein and his relativity, then go read Russell's monograph on it, or just Eintein himself. It wouldn't hurt to read some introductory material in a college physics book (e.g. Physics for Scientists and Engineers by Fishbane et al).
Rating:
Summary: Simply SWEET!
Review: Einstein's Dreams is the perfect book for me! Thought-provoking and extremely interesting! ED puts you on an amazing ride through time. Einstein's Dreams is not really about a certain story with certain characters, but it's about the story of time. Alan Lightman describes many ways in which time may really be, could be, have been, or even may will be! You may not understand what I mean by that now, but I assure you that if you read ED, you will absolutely love it! It is a rather short book, and you can pretty much finish it in one to two sittings! And you'll want to read it over and over...I know I have! Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: A poetic meditation on "What if...?"
Review: Make no mistake - this is not a thriller! Instead, it is a well-written, almost poetic series of meditations on a theme of "What if...?" How often, as children, did we ask ourselves questions, such as, "What if I walked upside down on the sky, and the earth was floating above me?" - usually while doing headstands! - that made no "sense", but flexed our mental muscles anyway? These are the same types of questions the author has our hero, Einstein, pondering as he moves through his days as a clerk in Vienna. If you're looking for plot, you won't find it here. If you enjoy prose that is meditative, highly descriptive and original, this is your book. There are no great revelations; but the concepts, the alternate realities the author describes, do give you reason to ask yourself, "What if...?" Read this early in the morning, with a nice coffee and under a blanket, while the rest of the house is sleeping.
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