Edwin A. AbbottFlatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott

Really cool explanation of why people living in a 3D worldmight be entirely unaware of a 4th spatial dimension.Flatland is a 2D world. Its characters trip across Lineland, a1D world and try to tell the residents about left and right,but they know only forward and backward. Then a 3Dsphere intersects the plane of Flatland and tries to tell theFlatland residents about up and down, but they know onlyforward, backward, left, right. Gets you thinking about how,if there truly were a 4th spatial dimension, we in our 3Dworld would be entirely unable to look in the right directionto even notice it.Warning: The interesting mathematical parts are embeddedin the most extreme misogynistic, "woman-are-stupid-men-are-much-smarter" commentary I've ever seen. The bookwas written in 1884, but still... Don't read it if you're notprepared to actively ignore all that crap.--Fred

Our mathematically inclined high schooler describes this as “amazing, a book that still holds up in the 21st century.”

Quirky and spellbinding. A must read for anyone fascinated by geometry.

LOVE THIS BOOK! It's funny, witty, and far ahead of its time.

I'm giving it four stars ONLY because someone who has never read or heard this book read, should read it or listen to it, and imagine what it would be like to have to describe what a Tessaract or a Hypercube (actually they're the same things -but then again, are they really, because you can only imagine them and you'll never know unless a Salvidor Dallyish type of painting of the Crucifxiion symbolickly trying to make you think of what it might be like if a eight headed seraphim or cherubim plucked you out of Spaceland (you didn't know you lived there) and you see something you'd only have thought you'd have seen if you ate some muchroomy stuff, but it's been real all the time, and all around you but you can't see it because you aren't able to look the right direction. And when you try to tell others about it they throw you in the loony bin. I mean really? What do you think should be done to you if you try to tell me or anyone else that there's some other dimension nobody but you have seen, and get all preachy about it, and yet can't even explain it in terms anyone could understand, because of your crazy claims that what's up isn't what's really up, but more than what's up? Would've gotten five stars but the narrator is REALLY boring and can't pronounce words correctly. Distracts you from being distracted. And you need to be able to be really distracted to see all the really weird possibilities as hypothetical philosophical things to ponder. I already READ the book. You'd be better off reading the book. Listening to it is harder to follow. And the movie they make is a travesty. Don't even think about watching it. It's just dumb. But that's not what this review is about. And why would an author have the same middle and last names anyway, unless he had some far out different kind of ideas?

I remember reading it when in school. Wanted to share with grandson. A little disappointed in the required reading level -quite difficult for middle school.

Way ahead of it's time and a very different story told than I'm used to. It's not a crazy long book, it's actually pretty short. Abbott is extraordinarily well at writing and has a very obvious Victorian sentence flow that takes getting used to. What I love most about the story without giving anything away, is the existentialism and social commentary. I highly recommend this book and I enjoyed reading this a lot.

I like it. It's hard to give a book less than 5 stars since art is subjective. This book has language that is indicative of the year when it was written, but it's still easy to follow.Just be aware that it isn't a "read while not paying attention" kind of book.