The Diagnosis: A Novel...Author: Alan and similar items

Format: Hardcover; ISBN: 0679436154; Publisher: Pantheon Books; Release Date: 2000; List Price: $25.00; Length: 369 pages; Edition: 1st with deckle-edged pages. Condition: Like New. Has remainder mark on underside of book. Otherwise jacket, cover, binding, and pages are all practically perfect. Same cover design as that shown here. Synopsis: Alan Lightman's first novel, Einstein's Dreams, was greeted with international praise. Salman Rushdie called it "at once intellectually provocative and touching and comic and so very beautifully written". Michiko Kakutani wrote in The New York Times that the novel creates "a magical, metaphysical realm...as in Calvino's work, the fantastical elements of the stories are grounded in precise, crystalline prose". With The Diagnosis, Lightman gives us his most ambitious and penetrating novel yet. While rushing to his office one warm summer morning, Bill Chalmers--a junior executive--realizes that he cannot remember where he is going or even who he is. All he remembers is the motto of his company: The maximum information in the minimum time. When Bill's memory returns ("his head pounding, remembering too much") a strange numbness afflicts him, beginning as a tingling in his hands and gradually spreading over the rest of his body. As he attempts to find a diagnosis of his illness, he descends into a nightmare. He endures a blizzard of medical tests and specialists without conclusive results, the manic frenzy of his company, and a desperate wife who decides that he must be imagining his deteriorating condition. By turns satiric, comic, and tragic, The Diagnosis is a brilliant and disturbing examination of our modern obsession with speed, information, and money...and what this obsession has done to our minds and our spirits. Priority Mail delivery for this item costs $7.00 at the request of a buyer. Otherwise, the shipping rate given here applies to orders shipped via Media Mail within the U.S. only. Orders consisting of multiple purchases packaged together ship by any of these delivery methods at a discounted rate, usually for only $1.00 per additional item plus the shipping fee for the first item (determined to be the one with the highest delivery charge). International buyers: please contact us with your destination country for applicable base shipping rates. Multiple purchases that are packaged together save shipping costs for you, too! Payment is expected within two weeks of placing your order for the first item within a shipment. Paypal is preferred, but money orders and checks (either personal or cashier's) are also accepted. Orders typically ship within 48 hours of PROCESSED payment, excluding weekends and holidays. Inquiries from all shoppers are responded to promptly and courteously. Buyers are encouraged to ask questions prior to placing orders, as all sales are final unless the product you receive differs significantly from that which was advertised here in terms of either the product itself or its promised condition. In other words, "buyer's remorse" does not qualify for a refund. Exceptions are made only in the event that a buyer is willing to return at his or her own expense an unopened, BRAND NEW item for a refund of the original purchase price only. No original shipping costs will be refunded, unless we are at fault for sending you the wrong item or misrepresenting the product and/or its condition. This hasn?t happened yet, but if it does: you are guaranteed a refund of the purchase price, the original shipping fee, PLUS the cost to ship the item back to us. Thank you for looking!