Booklist – May 2024
Listen to the May 2024 Booklist MP3 Audio File.
Here we are, almost halfway through a new year. Time passes so quickly! Sometimes we wish we could get it back, and other times we wish it would pass more quickly and we could move beyond the struggle of the present. Sometimes we long for simpler times. Or we wish we could be a fly on the wall during a great historical event, walk with dinosaurs, or see the Beatles in concert. Time travel is the great human dream! And it has caught the imagination for centuries. This booklist celebrates the desire to explore the future and the past. So, join us, and take some time to get lost in time.
Nonfiction
On the Origin of Time Stephen Hawking’s Final Theory by Thomas Hertog
Thomas Hertog worked closely with Stephen Hawking for 20 years working on the complex calculation of the big bang origin of the universe that led them to consider the possibilities of a multiverse. Together, they developed a new theory exploring extreme quantum physics. As Hawking neared his final days they published their theory. This book presents their striking new vision of the universe’s birth.
Time Travel: A History by James Glieick
This book tackles the topic of time travel. It Discusses the science behind the potential of it by looking at the work of Einstein, Feynman, and more. It also looks at its roots in literature, such as H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine. Some strong language.
Fiction
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
An educated young black woman is drawn repeatedly back in time to the antebellum plantation of her forebears. Here amidst the cruelties of slavery she becomes the protector and teacher of the plantation owner’s son, who she knows will become her own great-grandfather.
A Wrinkle in Time by Madelein L’Engle
When an atomic physicist disappears, his children begin a bizarre search. Led by three whimsical characters, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which, they manage their interplanetary journey by “wrinkling” to span space and time. For grades 5-8. Winner of a Newbery Medal.
Timeline by Michal Crichton
In the twenty-first century, quantum technology for teleportation enables a group of historians to travel back to fourteenth-century France. Seeking a stranded colleague and trying to return within a tight time frame, they find survival in a feudal society more difficult than anticipated. Violence.
Time Machines: The Greatest Time Travel Stories Ever Written compiled by Bill Alder
Anthology of twenty-two time travel short stories. Personal favorites of the editor ranging from Edgar Allan Poe’s “Three Sundays in a Week” written in 1850 to Derryl Murphy’s “What Goes Around” from 1997.
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
In 2057 Lady Schrapnell endows a time-travel project in return for help rebuilding Coventry Cathedral. The only object she needs for the newly restored building is the bishop’s bird stump. Ned Henry is sent back to 1940 to retrieve it before the church burns, but he arrives a few hours too late.
The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley
After her beloved sister dies, Eva Ward returns to the house on the Cornish coast where they played as children. There, she must contend with ghosts both recent and not-so-recent. Along a hidden path, she finds herself in a different time and must decide whether to stay or go.
Image Description: The back of silhouetted man stands in the foreground, surrounded by several large clocks. A light leads him into the distance.