The Book of Records

Why did people, who lived so briefly in this universe, contain so much time?Lina and her ailing father have taken refuge at an enclave called the Sea, a staging post between migrations, with only a few possessions, among them three volumes from The Great Lives of Voyagers encyclopaedia series.In this mysterious and shape-shifting building, pasts and futures collide. Lina befriends her unusual neighbours: Bento, a Jewish scholar in seventeenth-century Amsterdam; Blucher, a philosopher in 1930s Germany fleeing Nazi persecution; and Jupiter, a poet of Tang Dynasty China, and through their stories, she comes to understand the role of fate in history and the way that ideas can shape the world, and to face up to the cost wrought on her family and others by her father's betrayals.

A beautiful fable about migration, memory, and the struggle to recognize our common humanity.--Barack Obama

In the tradition of Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven and Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land, Thien's new work almost seamlessly integrates literary, historical and science fiction.--Bethanne Patrick "Los Angeles Times"

[An] ambitious, elliptical novel...A poignant meditation on loss and its many meanings, grief an endless loop like an Escher drawing...The Book of Records is both a dystopian fantasy... and an ode to a planet in crisis.--Hamilton Cain "Washington Post"

Deeply humane...With her imagined worlds, incandescent prose and malleable sense of time and history, Thien strikes worthy comparisons to Italo Calvino, Walter Benjamin, Gaston Bachelard and Ali Smith's seasonal quartet. This staggering novel blurs the line between fact and fiction to underscore the importance of storytelling itself, as a practice of endurance, and resistance...Try to read without weeping profusely.--Lauren LeBlanc "New York Times Book Review"

Rapturous...The Book of Records is a rich and beautiful novel. It's serious but playful; a study of limbo and stasis that nonetheless speaks of great movement and change.--Xan Brooks "The Guardian"

The novel moves effortlessly across time, raising questions about the nature of a good life and how to respond to catastrophic times. Despite the often heavy nature of their stories, each narrative strand contributes to a sense of lightness, a buoyancy in the face of rising waters that will feel necessary and timely to readers in today's uncertain climate.--Sara Beth West "Shelf Awareness"

An imaginative work of historical fiction.-- "New York Times"

Madeleine Thien's inventive and ambitious fourth novel, The Book of Records, opens with maximum intrigue...Fans of books like Mohsin Hamid's Exit West and Omar El Akkad's What Strange Paradise will find much to enjoy in the structure, tone, and concerns of The Book of Records. Many readers will find the novel's observations about the nature of authoritarian governments especially timely...One can't help but admire the breadth of Thien's imagination.--Leland Cheuk "Boston Globe"