Time's Arrow was a gift to me by from Rob Melrose, whose apartment we lived in in San Fran. Rob is a theatre director whose plays tend to explore the darker aspects of what makes us human. I'm not sure whether that should imply anything about this book or not. I will not spoil it beyond noting that it describes a man's life lived backwards, from death to birth. At first it is difficult to let go of our natural- cause and effect- outlook and so I think the first half of the book is designed more or less to move into a mode of thinking where one sits down to table to vomit three times a day and where doctors are butchers filling their seemingly healthy patients with sickness and disease. Whenever I put the book down I found it hard to shake this bass ackwards mode of thinking. In any case, if it takes a while to warm up to it, once the book has you captured the ride is simultaneously enlightening and disturbing. I was thoroughly entranced and highly recommend it.