Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward

Thought-provoking, beautiful, unexpected.

Love and Other Thought Experiments is a powerful, character-driven story, full of twists and turns, highs and lows. If I tried to explain the book’s plot to you, it would sound completely ludicrous. But as the story unravels, with its compelling characters and relatable situations, it makes complete sense even when the completely unexpected happens.

Each chapter begins with an extract of philosophical argument or a famous thought experiment (texts from Pascal, Neumann, Nagel and Descartes), and the following pages lightly explore the presented concept through the story of a couple who decide to have a child.

She wondered if she could even be considered the same person now that every cell in her body has been replaced, more than once.

I love books with interconnected characters and different storylines, and Ward has delivered in this clever, emotive book, which touches on the very human theme of love in all its forms (for self, family, friends, partners, and our planet). She’s created a wonderful world in which I felt very warm and welcome, and was a bit irked to have to leave.

Blurb: Rachel and Eliza are planning their future together. One night in bed, Rachel wakes up terrified, and tells Eliza that an ant has crawled into her eye and is stuck there. Rachel is certain; Eliza, a scientist, is sceptical. Suddenly their entire relationship is called into question. What follows is a uniquely imaginative sequence of interlinked stories ranging across time, place and perspective to form a sparkling philosophical tale of love, lost and found across the universe.