"She is a playful, buoyant, witty stylist who parses intractably difficult philosophical and religious ideas with breathtaking ease . . . She is also smarter than me, you, and most people on earth . . . Philosophy won’t go away as long as Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is around to remind us of its enduring relevance.” —Matthew Price, The Boston Globe [on Plato at the Googleplex]

"A brainy, compassionate, divinely witty novel. Goldstein can make Spinoza sing and Gödel comprehensible, and in her cerebral fiction she dances across disciplines with delight, writing domestic comedy about Cartesian metaphysics and academic satire about photoelectric energy. 36 Arguments radiates all the humor and erudition we've come to expect from Goldstein, and despite the novel's attention to the oldest questions, it has arrived at exactly the right moment . . . One of the funniest [academic satires] ever written . . . Goldstein doesn't want to shake your faith or confirm it, but she'll make you a believer in the power of fiction." —Ron Charles, The Washington Post

“One of the most intelligent and funny pieces of fiction to surface this year. Goldstein’s ability to translate complex philosophical or mathematical problems to such basics as friendship and sexual desire leaves the reader giddy with inspiration . . . One of the most original laugh riots to successfully disguise itself as literature.” —The Kansas City Star [on The Mind-Body Problem]