Oxford 2057, where time travel is a thing.Lady Shrapnell is pouring all her effort into restoring the Coventry Cathedral, destroyed during a German bombing in 1940. And she'll damned well requisition every last time travelling historian from Oxford, if that's what it takes to recover all the original artefacts.Ned Henry is one of the unfortunate historians, trying to dodge yet another deployment, so he gets sent back to the Victorian era for a bit of downtime. He's also meant to deliver a rat......

It is a revelation, smart and funny, especially a particular mix-up about Cyril. Romance, time travel, history, this book has it all.

➽ And the moral of this rererererereread is: this book is perfection and the audio version is everything. That is all. P.S. The only thing that is missing from this book is the Empress of Blandings. Pretty sure she'd get along famously with pwecious dearum Juju and Cyril.P.S. I want a penwiper for Christmas. Preferably one that meows and purrs and stuff.👋 Until next time.[October 2018]· Previous rating: 5 stars *eyerolls at her 2015 Self of Despicable Book Taste and Total Lack of Judgement*...

Fateful re-read 5/4/18 This is one of my all-time favorite books. From the clever phrases and deep PTSD exasperation to the total eventual collapse of the space-time continuum because of a freaking cat to THE BISHOP'S BIRD-STUMP, I find myself chortling nearly twenty years after the first read and again on the re-read.We're catapulted through time thanks to the Oxford History Department's time machine put to the disposal of a wealthy American patron who is, let's be frank, NUTS. She's sent seemi...

$2.99 Kindle sale, Dec. 11, 2018. While this offbeat time-travel novel is a sequel of sorts to Doomsday Book, they have completely different vibes, and it's not really necessary to have read Doomsday Book before this one. This is one of my favorite books in the world, but it's kind of an odd one that probably won't work for everyone. It's a little bit madcap farce, with people running and time-hopping around trying to find some obscure, ugly piece of Victorian art; it's got a bit of romantic com...

Two weeks ago I'd not heard of Connie Willis or of this novel. It came into my life because I randomly clicked through to this article in The Guardian when I was looking for something completely different. Had I done my random clicking pre-Goodreads, I may well have passed on this novel, because "science-fiction fantasy" does not describe the kind of novel I generally read. But these days I'm much more adventurous, so I jumped right in. What fun this was! It's a time travel story that (sort of) ...

Christmas 2010: I realised that I had got stuck in a rut. I was re-reading old favourites again and again, waiting for a few trusted authors to release new works. Something had to be done.On the spur of the moment I set myself a challenge, to read every book to have won the Locus Sci-Fi award. That’s 35 books, 6 of which I’d previously read, leaving 29 titles by 14 authors who were new to me.While working through this reading list I got married, went on my honeymoon, switched career and beca...

If ever there was a symphony as book (Beethoven's 8th?), it would be this one. Like a symphony, To Say Nothing is a wonderful composite that is almost impossible to deconstruct. In many books, there might be a chapter that stands out, whether due to brilliance or failure; this is largely a harmonious, excellently written whole, with only one or two incongruous passages near the end. Then there's the writing: amazingly developed and interwoven, it takes a number of disparate themes and juxtaposes...

Oh, dear. Every time I see the title of this book it makes me feel anxious. I am almost ashamed to say this in public, but I will be brave: I didn't like it. I know. Everyone loves it and I can't explain why I don't. Normally I love all the elements that make up this book: time travel, romance, the 19th century. Just to be sure about it I have read it twice over the years; once in traditional book format and once as an audio book. *sigh* It makes me feel defective but there you are. I didn't lik...

Update on 6/28/2021: As we get farther in time from when this book was written, certain parts become amusing (the phrase “fax-mags” made me giggle aloud, for example), and I might not love this book as much as i read it for the first time today. But I do love it, and I’ve read it so many times that I wince at every error in the ebook. (You know you’ve read a book too many times when you’re hissing at changes in the italics.) This book has, I think, every single Connie Willis trope there is (exce...