[a:Alan Lightman|8933|Alan Lightman|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1550028004p2/8933.jpg]'s [b:Einstein's Dreams|14376|Einstein's Dreams|Alan Lightman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386925066l/14376.SY75.jpg|1820798] is, like the title implies, dreamlike. But don't worry if you don't feel like you're at Einstein's level when it comes to exploring the ideas he came up with in the early part of the twentieth century. This is an exploration of time, but not in a technical sense. Einstein would do what he called "thought experiments" from the time he was a teenager. Things like imagining what would happen if you chased a beam of light and sped up until you caught it. This short work of fiction is along those lines and at times it made me think a little of [a:Kurt Vonnegut Jr.|2778055|Kurt Vonnegut Jr.|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1433582280p2/2778055.jpg], a comparison Lightman might not like—he teaches physics and writing at MIT—but seems apt to me in some parts.
 Einstein's Dreams is physically a tiny book, 179 pages long and six-and-a-half inches long, four-and-a-half inches wide. The copy I got at a used book store originally sold for $17.00, in 1993. Pricey at that time.
 It takes place in Berne, Switzerland, in 1905 and has a few very nice pen-and-ink illustrations of street scenes there by Chris Costello.

 Dawn. A salmon fog floats through the city, carried on the breath of the river. The sun waits beyond the Nydegg Bridge, throws its long, reddened spikes along Kramgasse to the giant clock that measures time, illuminates the underside of balconies. Sounds of morning drift through the streets like the smell of bread. A child wakes and cries for her mother. An awning creaks quietly as the milliner arrives at his shop on Marktgasse. An engine whines on the river. Two women talk softly beneath an arcade.