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Discussion Guide
When We Cease to Understand the World
These book club questions are from the Booker Prizes, for which this novel was on the International shortlist in 2021. A full reading guide can be found here.
Book club questions for When We Cease to Understand the World by Labatut Benjamin
Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.
The author has said this is a book ‘that uses science as an excuse to speak about those aspects of the human experience that neither words nor equations can tame.’ He pays special attention to the science, but he also uses it as a metaphor. For what?
One judge described the book as ‘the history of failure masquerading as progress’. What do you think she meant by that?
Do you need to understand quantum mechanics to appreciate this book?
The Booker Prize judges said that the author writes very beautifully about how language and mathematics both explain the world. How does he achieve that?
When We Cease to Understand the World Book Club Questions PDF
Click here for a printable PDF of the When We Cease to Understand the World discussion questions