Iâm an incurable nostalgist and, thanks to early exposure to a curly-haired, scarf-wearing eccentric who travels the universe in a battered old police box, gained an early and ongoing obsession with time travel stories, whether intricately-plotted and filled with brain-tangling paradoxes, or steeped in wistful yearning for days gone by. Young me would, I like to think, be delighted to learn that he would, one day, write a book bursting with both paradoxes AND yearning.
As a six-year-old, I was enraptured by the 1974 BBC TV adaptation of this book, thrilled by the notion that I, too, might one day find a magical route into hidden worlds.
As my reading skills improved, I did just that, thanks to a library card and books like this one. Pearceâs tale is haunting and beautifully told, and thereâs an ingenious little piece of time-travel plotting involving a pair of ice skates that blew my preteen mind.
From beloved author Philippa Pearce, this sixtieth-anniversary edition is the perfect way to share this transcendent story of friendship with a new generation of readers. Philip Pullman, bestselling author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, called Tom's Midnight Garden "A perfect book."
When Tom's brother gets sick, he's shipped off to spend what he's sure will be a boring summer with his aunt and uncle in the country. But then Tom hears the old grandfather clock in the hall chime thirteen times, and he's transported back to an old garden where he meets a young,âŚ
Christmas, 1979: My gifts include a Radio Shack tape recorder and tapes of All Creatures Great and Small star Robert Hardy reading this book. Iâm already familiar with the story via George Palâs 1960 film adaptation, but Hardyâs reading and Wellsâ breathless prose bring the tale to life so vividly that I embark on a Wells obsession that lasts for several years.
This is a book I return to regularlyâand I still canât read those first few lines without hearing Hardyâs rich, commanding voice.
A brilliant scientist constructs a machine, which, with the pull of a lever, propels him to the year AD 802,701.
Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition of The Time Machine features an introduction by Dr Mark Bould.
The Time Traveller finds himself in a verdant, seemingly idyllic landscape where he is greeted by the diminutive Eloi people. The Eloi are beautiful but weak and indolent, and the explorer is perplexed byâŚ
To Do Justice is the first book in the White Winter Trilogy. The other books are To Love Kindness and To Walk Humbly. The Trilogy follows the same set of characters through eight tumultuous years in their lives and in the history of the world. To Do Justice startsâŚ
This book has a forbidding reputation, but I was lucky enough to come to it in my teens, not knowing I was supposed to be intimidated by it. Instead, I fell instantly and irretrievably in love with the mind-expanding potential of language and story.
It's about a city (Dublin), about a single day (June 16, 1904), and about a million other things besides. Itâs a game, a challenge, a marvel, and I particularly love the way it uses time as a constant motif, as Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom weave their way through Dublin across the course of the day, their interior monologues wandering likewise between past, present and future.
James Joyce's masterpiece, Ulysses, tells of the diverse events which befall Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus in Dublin on one day in June 1904. It is considered to be one of the most important works of modernist literature and was hailed as a work of genius by W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway. Scandalously frank, wittily erudite, mercurially eloquent, resourcefully comic and generously humane, Ulysses offers the reader a life-changing experience
Time travel books arenât uncommon, but itâs rare to find one that uses time as the hook for an emotional story rather than the more familiar sci-fi/adventure tropes. I love that Niffenegger sidesteps story-sapping technobabble, making this a story about people, not sci-fi hardware.
Iâm a sucker for a time travel story thatâs intricately but logically constructed, and this book certainly falls into that category, but itâs about much more than plot mechanics. Instead, it focuses firmly on the emotional toll time travel places on Henry, our titular temporal voyager, and his eventual wife, Clare. The book struck a chord with meâand several million other readersâwith its strong emotional core and deep philosophical underpinnings.
Now a series on HBO starring Rose Leslie and Theo James!
The iconic time travel love story and mega-bestselling first novel from Audrey Niffenegger is "a soaring celebration of the victory of love over time" (Chicago Tribune).
Henry DeTamble is a dashing, adventurous librarian who is at the mercy of his random time time-traveling abilities. Clare Abshire is an artist whose life moves through a natural sequential course. This is the celebrated and timeless tale of their love. Henry and Clare's passionate affair is built and endures across a sea of time and captures them in an impossibly romantic trapâŚ
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctorâand only womanâon a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
Time is at the very heart of this book, and I adored the structure of it, relishing the chance to drop in on the lives of Emma and Dexter each July 15 over two decades. Itâs a brilliant storytelling conceit, allowing Nicholls to present a series of snapshots of an ebbing and flowing relationship that builds into an emotionally affecting whole.
By the end, I felt like I had spent time not with two characters but with two very familiar peopleâflawed, frustrating, unpredictable, but always believable, always understandable.
'ONE DAY is destined to be a modern classic' - Daily Mirror Twenty years, two people, ONE DAY. The multi-million copy bestseller that captures the experiences of a generation. 'I can imagine you at forty,' she said, a hint of malice in her voice. 'I can picture it right now.' He smiled without opening his eyes. 'Go on then.' 15th July 1988. Emma and Dexter meet for the first time on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways. So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that? AndâŚ
My book is the tale of Luke Seymour, a troubled ex-journalist who discovers a talent for time travel after being recruited into the ranks of the mysterious Nostalgia Club. Tasked with a perilous mission into his own past, Luke learns the secrets of the clubâs members and hones his seductive new talentâall the while moving closer to the terrible mistake that scarred his life.
Set in Glasgow and Edinburgh in the 1980s, 1990s, and near-present, the book gives the mechanics of time travel a unique spin. It uses the stories of Luke and his fellow time travelersâwho include a Syrian refugee and a car saleswoman with a very dark pastâto tell a powerful and moving tale about love, loss, memory, and the dangers of nostalgia.
My Year of Casual Acquaintances
by
Ruth F. Stevens,
When Marâs husband divorces her, she reacts by abandoning everything in her past: her home, her friends, even her name. Though it's not easy starting over, sheâs ready for new adventuresâas long as she can keep things casual. Each month, Mar goes from one acquaintance to the next: a fellowâŚ
Willem and Jurriaan have a miserable childhood thanks to their cruel, controlling motherâLouisa Veldkamp, a world-renowned pianist. Dad turns a blind eye. One day, Louisa vanishes without a trace during a family vacation.
Adoptee Anneliese Bakker survives a toxic childhood and leaves home, vowing never to return. While searching forâŚ