"I didn't have a happy life," Ludvig Bergsson's father told him shortly before his death. Haunted by these words, Ludvig grapples with his father's memory. Had these been the words of a delirious and ailing man, or the truth as his father saw it? Troubled, Ludvig suggests that his university's next annual symposium address one of life's greatest challenges: How might we prepare for its inevitable end? Each guest lecturer grapples with the question of what it means to live a good life, and how to make peace not only with death, but with what may or may not follow. As he listens to their presentations, Ludvig thinks not only of his father, but his own life and family, and the simple and unexpected ways in which he can find new meaning.

Alan 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 SCREENING ROOM, the author chronicles his return to Memphis in an attempt to understand the origins he so eagerly left behind 40 years earlier.

MR G is the story of Creation as told by God, or “Mr g.” Mr g is all powerful but not all knowing, and he does much of his invention by trial and error. As he watches his favorite universe grow, he begins to understand how the act of creation can change himself, the Creator.