Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story

'Why is there a world rather than nothing at all?' remains the most enduring of all metaphysical mysteries. Moving away from the narrower paths of Christopher Hitchens, Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking, celebrated essayist Jim Holt traces all our efforts to grasp the origins of the universe.

Suggesting that we might have been too narrow in limiting our suspects to God and the Big Bang, he tracks down, among others, an eccentric Oxford philosopher, a Nobel Laureate physicist, a French Buddhist monk and novelist John Updike, to pursue this cosmic puzzle from every angle.

As he pieces together a solution – while offering insights into time, consciousness and eternity – he sheds fascinating new light on the meaning of existence.