Slice of Life Tuesday: Time Travel Books

Some of my favorite types of books are those that involve time travel. It’s always been enjoyable for me to read stories that involve characters who move through time. I think this fondness started with reading Wrinkle in Time when I was in grade school in the early 1970s. The whole idea of children traveling, or Tessering as it is called in this story, through time to see their father captured my imagination like no other story I had ever read. I still have my original copy of this book, first published in 1962 and written by Madeleine L’Engle.  It is THE book that first comes to mind when someone asks me for my list of favorites.

Another time travel book that I found enjoyable was Timeline by Michael Creighton (1999). This, of course, was a more adult version of a time travel story.  Even though it has been years since I read this story about students who travel back in time to the middle ages, I remember it being a vivid story that could prompt a good discussion for a book club.

You might remember or even read the book named The Time Traveler’s Wife (2003) by Audrey Niffenegger.  This book was so enthralling for me that I read it much more quickly than I usually read a novel. Strangely enough, many of the dates mentioned in this story are dates that hold some personal significance in my own life. I found this observation both strange and thrilling at the same time. In any case, the romantic notion that love can be sustained through time and transcend age is an idea that I cannot help but hope is true.

The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.  I’ve read the first three of the books in this series, being seriously hooked by the first novel, Outlander (1991), and the main character, Claire. I went on to read the Dragonfly in Amber and Voyager. I stopped after those three books.  Time travel is an essential component of this series. I looked back at my good reads ratings and gave the first book 4/5 stars but the subsequent two books only got 2/5 stars from me. Given than I’m surprised I kept reading.  And, no, I’ve never watched the series.

I just finished Pathfinder (2010) by Orson Scott Card. This was no simple feat. The book is 650 pages long. I took three weeks to read it. And, although it is a genre that usually is not attractive to me (part science fiction and dystopian), the story is also very much that of time travel. Card does not take a simple approach to time travel, and for that reason, the story is convoluted at times. But, if you do not try to understand the traveling and movement of the characters, it makes the story more enjoyable. The only problem with enjoying this story is that it is first in a series. I might buy the next book. Or, I might not. It’s that type of book.

Commonalities other than the time travel itself are 1) they were all actual books that I held in my hands to read, 2) despite movies or television series being made of most of these novels, I have not watched any of them, nor do I have any plans to do so, and 3) I would read them all again.

Reading is an important skill but beyond having the ability to read increasingly more difficult books and content, is the importance of enjoying what you read. What books have you read lately that you’ve enjoyed or would recommend?

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Image by SeaReeds from Pixabay

Today is Slice of Life Tuesday. Thank you to TwoWritingTeachers.org’s blog for hosting this forum each week. It is great to have a supportive community where authors and bloggers can share their prose, poetry, and a small slice of their life!

 

 

12 thoughts

  1. I love time travel books too and added some from your list to mine! I just finished “The Last Namsara” by Kristen Ciccarelli. I really love books with dragons in them so this was perfect for me…and so well written! I’ve recently bought my first e-reader and I have to say I really like it!

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    1. Thanks, Llsa. I will look for that book! My husband likes dragon books. I don’t love my e-reader but still use it on occasion when it is easy to get a book and start reading right away! I hope you find a book you like from my list.

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  2. Interesting book. I learned about several new ones here. Though I didn’t consider myself a fan of time travel books, when I read your post, I actually remembered others I have enjoyed a lot. L’Engle’s Many Waters was my favorite in her time series. I also enjoyed Timeline and in high school, A Connecticut Yankee in King Author’s Court. I’ll have to try one of the more recent books you mention. Thanks for the recommendations and reviews.

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  3. I loved the Time Traveler’s Wife book – I too couldn’t stop turning the pages. Sadly, the movie adaptation fell a bit flat for me, but I’m sure plenty of others feel differently. Outlander I haven’t been able to get on board with, just not my type of story I don’t think. A lesser known time travel book that I read a few years ago, and really ended up enjoying, was the Phantom Tree by Nicola Cornick. And then the very recent Oona Out of Order was pretty good too – a lot crammed into one book, but still worth a read I think 🙂

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    1. Ohhhh, thanks for the other recommendations! I will add them to my list. Now that I think about it, I did see the time traveler’s wife film and didn’t care for it either. In fact, I don’t remember much of it, but do think that the film’s representation interferred with what I imagined when reading, so it didn’t fit for me. I very often do not like books made into film.

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  4. I was drawn by your title, because I read an interesting time travel book lately–This Is How You Lose the Time War
    by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. It’s about agents on either side of a time war who grow to love each other via letters left behind for the other to find–obviously at their own peril, being enemies. The book is written as a series of letters between the agents. It’s very trippy, but I enjoyed it!

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