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Love and Other Thought Experiments

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020

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Love and Other Thought Experiments

By: Sophie Ward
Narrated by: Sophie Ward
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About this listen

 Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020

'Sophie Ward is a dazzling talent who writes like a modern-day F Scott Fitzgerald' Elizabeth Day, author of How To Fail

'An act of such breath-taking imagination, daring and detail that the journey we are on is believable and the debate in the mind non-stop. There are elements of Doris Lessing in the writing - a huge emerging talent here' Fiona Shaw

'A towering literary achievement' Ruth Hogan, author of The Keeper of Lost Things

'Philosophy meets fiction in this beguiling and intriguing novel of minds, hearts, other worlds, love, death and everything in between. It's a book that dances and dazzles with ideas and left me thinking long after I finished it' Sophie Kinsella

Rachel and Eliza are hoping to have a baby. The couple spend many happy evenings together planning for the future.

One night Rachel wakes up screaming and tells Eliza that an ant has crawled into her eye and is stuck there. She knows it sounds mad - but she also knows it's true. As a scientist, Eliza won't take Rachel's fear seriously and they have a bitter fight. Suddenly their entire relationship is called into question.

Inspired by some of the best-known thought experiments in philosophy, particularly philosophy of mind, Love and Other Thought Experiments is a story of love lost and found across the universe.©2020 Sophie Ward Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Psychological

The Pride List of Queer Storytelling

To mark Pride 2023 Audible teamed up with non-profit organisation, Out on the Page, supporter and champion of LGBTQIA+ writers and writing, to release an extensive Pride List of Queer Storytelling. Featuring contributions from some of the UK’s most important and exciting voices from the LGBTQIA+ community, this audiobook is one of the many featured on the list that is available to listen to on Audible.
Explore the list

Critic reviews

Sophie Ward is a dazzling talent who writes like a modern-day F Scott Fitzgerald (Elizabeth Day)
a genuinely affective family narrative that is emotionally compelling as well as intellectually stimulating. Surely not since Jostein Gaarder's 1991 novel Sophie's World, has an author produced such an imaginative and original synthesis of fiction and philosophy (Becky Long)
In Love and Other Thought Experiments, Ward proposes to alter the colour of her readers' minds . . . But the success of Ward's venture inevitably depends on the quality of the writing. This is often moving, exuberant and sensitive. We care about her characters and share their hopes and fears. Ward's investigation and practice of empathy is easily the best thing in the book.
Brimming with close observation . . . the sheer literary ambition on show is impressive, with Ward producing a highly original first novel that echoes European experimentalists such as Kundera and Krasznahorkai
Ward has achieved something quite extraordinary: a super-smart metaphysical romp that's also warm, wistful and heartfelt. A book that declares, winningly, that just because it's all in your head, it doesn't mean it's not real.
It is an act of such breath-taking imagination, daring and detail that the journey we are on is believable and the debate in the mind non-stop. There are elements of Doris Lessing in the writing - a huge emerging talent here
Ward's ingenious fiction debut stands in a tradition of philosophical fiction: Voltaire's Candide, Sartre's Nausea . . . [Her] writing is often moving, exuberant and sensitive . . . gifts of bravura wit and imagination (Stevie Davies)
Love and Other Thought Experiments is a towering literary achievement. Sophie's prose is exquisite and her storytelling powerful, poignant and utterly gripping. An astonishing debut
Philosophy meets fiction in this beguiling and intriguing novel of minds, hearts, other worlds, love, death and everything in between. It's a book that dances and dazzles with ideas and left me thinking long after I finished it
Sophie Kinsella
Sophie Ward's writing is as clear as a knife sounded against a glass and just as attention-grabbing. Fiction, fable and philosophy combined together with real human folly and fate at its heart. This book is as hard to pin down as it's impossible to forget
I loved Love and Other a Thought Experiments. Each chapter works as a story, immersive and compelling, and then the wider structure takes over, the harmonics sound out, and it accumulates into a universe of its own. Really ingenious, full of wisdom, full of love
Love and Other Thought Experiments is acutely original and thought-provoking. From beginning to end it is beautifully observed, intelligently constructed and deftly handled. Love and Other Thought Experiments is as multi-faceted as a diamond; a true philosophical hoard; a book I shall always treasure
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This is a wonderful mix of fiction and philosophy with so many thought-provoking moments.
It's written and read at an easy to listen to pace with an interesting theme and plenty of characters with a great mix of clear, individual voices throughout.
It's a great audiobook for listening to in whopping great chunks as the story unfolds gently in your ears and the chapters fly by.
Sophie Ward's narration sets the pace and tone of the telling and I can't imagine anyone else doing it the same justice she has.
Fantastic book that I highly recommend is definitely a must-have in any audio collection.

Wonderfully thought-provoking and captivating

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"If you could assemble a human body from all the right atoms and molecules, would it be conscious or does something else, non-physical need to be added?"

A delicious amalgamation of story and thought-experiments. Not always clear where the thought-experiments end and the stories begin. Thought-experiments are invented in order to consider the validity of alternative solutions to hypothetical situations. Different mutually-exclusive solutions may both both exist. That is the flavour of the book.

An ant burrows into Rachel's eye and from there into her brain. What is the ant doing there, where did it come from? How is the ant going to affect Rachel going forward?

The 10 chapters are almost 10 self-contained stories, but they are both incomplete and linked. Each one doesn't fully make sense as you finish it but a later chapter provides some explanation - retrospectively. This gradual revelation of what is going on is the main joy of this book, so I won't spoil it by offering an explanation here. Just to say that Rachel (not the ant) is the main character running through the 10 chapters, and we only gradually find out who she is. The listener has to wait until chapter 9 for the main explanation.

Audible classify this as "Genre Fiction". I think they wanted it to sound intriguing and to appeal to the widest market possible. I'd classify it as "Science Fiction" - the thought provoking kind.

Sci-Fi meets philosophy

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This is read beautifully, but ceases to make sense after chapter 6. There is a fair bit of existential waffle and a smug approach. I am really disappointed as I listened to ‘A Marriage Proposal ‘ and thoroughly admired the authors writing style.
This book is clever, intense, but ultimately irritating, with characters I didn’t particularly like. I do realise this is on the Booker Prize long list,but I cannot recommend it sadly.

Clever but incomprehensible

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Wasn't expecting sci-fi, but loved this surprisingly weird and thought provoking book. Beautifully narrated by the author.

Intriguing

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Different, interesting, bit sad, then later becomes futuristic. Enjoyed it. Would listen to it again.

Space age fun in the future

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