What is a good time travel book to read?

Question

After being obsessed with the Back To The Future Triology for so many years, I like to read a good time travel book. Can anyone recommend a good one? Fiction or Science Fiction? What do you like about the book you are recommending?

Answer 1

As mentioned 'Timeline' and 'The Time Machine'.
There are other authors that have taken HG Wells The Time Machine, story further.
'The Return of the Time Machine' by Egon Friedell for instance.

Answer 2

One of my favorite books of all time: Time and Again, by Jack Finney. I love this book, it is not science fiction but rather a fiction novel where a man goes back in time as part of a government experiment - he witnesses many true historical events and has great relationships with the other characters. There are real photos of historical events which are used as illustration of his experiences. My summary here absolutely does not give this book justice, you really must read it, it is a gem!

Answer 3

Why don´t you go for H.G.Wells and The Time Machine. It´s a classic and it´s fantastic. Timeline from Michael Crichton is also good. Another one very interesiting, but a bit weird is from an Italian called Valerio Evangelisti, who wrote a series of books that start with Inquisitor. This last one is available in Italian, French, Germany and Portuguese. I didn´t find it in English.

Answer 4

I have to second esjay's recommendation on this one; I just started reading The Time Traveler's Wife (Fiction) by Audrey Niffenegger, too, and I am really enjoying it! It's clever, quirky, at times funny, and very original. It makes complex concepts fresh and entertaining. It takes a few chapters to get used to the protagonist's movement in and out of time, but if you like time travel books, I think it'll be great fun for you. I'm not usually a fan of "soaring love story" type novels, but I'm loving this one, so far.

Here's the synopsis, courtesy of Amazon.com:

"Publisher's Weekly - This highly original first novel won the largest advance San Francisco-based MacAdam/Cage had ever paid, and it was money well spent. Niffenegger has written a soaring love story illuminated by dozens of finely observed details and scenes, and one that skates nimbly around a huge conundrum at the heart of the book: Henry De Tamble, a rather dashing librarian at the famous Newberry Library in Chicago, finds himself unavoidably whisked around in time. He disappears from a scene in, say, 1998 to find himself suddenly, usually without his clothes, which mysteriously disappear in transit, at an entirely different place 10 years earlier-or later. During one of these migrations, he drops in on beautiful teenage Clare Abshire, an heiress in a large house on the nearby Michigan peninsula, and a lifelong passion is born. The problem is that while Henry's age darts back and forth according to his location in time, Clare's moves forward in the normal manner, so the pair are often out of sync. But such is the author's tenderness with the characters, and the determinedly ungimmicky way in which she writes of their predicament (only once do they make use of Henry's foreknowledge of events to make money, and then it seems to Clare like cheating) that the book is much more love story than fantasy. It also has a splendidly drawn cast, from Henry's violinist father, ruined by the loss of his wife in an accident from which Henry time-traveled as a child, to Clare's odd family and a multitude of Chicago bohemian friends. The couple's daughter, Alba, inherits her father's strange abilities, but this is again handled with a light touch; there's no Disney cuteness here. Henry's foreordained end is agonizing, but Niffenegger has another card up her sleeve, and plays it with poignant grace. It is a fair tribute to her skill and sensibility to say that the book leaves a reader with an impression of life's riches and strangeness rather than of easy thrills."

Answer 5

the Bible...

it goes from the beginning (past)
talks about the present
and then tells us about whats gonna happen in the future!

and its also non-fiction...

and an added bonus is all the great truths, revalations, wisdom, comfort, joy and knowledge that you can get out of it if only you open your heart!

its a mystery, a thriller, a time-travel, a poem book, a self-help book, a how-to book and the greatest love story ever told...

years and years of reading right there :-)
Best book i ever read.

Answer 6

The Outlander series by Gabaldon is something you would love. It defies classification. Some people like The Time Travellers Wife, but after Outlander, I was bored and truly hated it. It was all I could do not to just stop halfway throught it.

Answer 7

There's probably lots, but as I've just finished literature at College I can tell you that someone well studied in the art will make you experience many more things than someone not experienced. Also, the classic, for very good reasons, is H.G. Wells' The Time Machine.

Answer 8

The Time Travellers Wife - by Audrey Niffenegger. I have only just started reading it, but apparently it's a bit of a love story where the husband goes backwards and forwards in time and meets his wife at different ages of her life. I expect it is going to be a fantastic read.

Answer 9

Right now I'm reading "night watch"from terry Pratchett, a discworldbook. Its about a man who travels back in time by accident and needs to get back, and meanwhile meets his younger self and educates him. But timetravelwise its not as ingenues as Back to the Future (I love those movies too). I'm hoping for some good books too, thanks for asking this question!

Answer 10

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. It is touching and somewhat such a heartwarming love story.