The Book of Records
by Madeleine Thien· 2025
A father and daughter take residence in a shape-shifting building made of time where they meet a cast of extraordinary characters in this novel that mines good, evil and the capaciousness of human thought.
'Why did people, who lived so briefly in this universe, contain so much time?'
Lina and her father have arrived at an enclave called the Sea, a staging-post between migrations, with only a few possessions, among them three volumes from The Great Voyagers encyclopedia series. In this mysterious and shape-shifting building made of time, pasts and futures collide. Lina befriends her neighbours: Bento, a Jewish scholar in seventeenth-century Amsterdam, excommunicated for his radical thought; Blucher, a philosopher in 1930s Germany fleeing Nazi persecution; and Jupiter, a poet of Tang Dynasty China, whose brilliance goes unrecognised by the state. Their stories fuse with those of philosophers from previous centuries: Baruch Spinoza, Hannah Arendt and the Chinese poet Du Fu. And as Lina's ailing father becomes less well, he recounts how he and Lina came to reside in the Sea, and what his betrayals cost their family and others.
Exploring the role of fate in history, the migratory nature of humanity and the place of faith in our world, The Book of Records addresses fundamental questions about creativity, and good and evil.
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A father and daughter take residence in a shape-shifting building made of time where they meet a cast of extraordinary characters in this novel that mines good, evil and the capaciousness of human thought. 'Why did people, who lived so briefly in this universe, contain so much time?' Lina and her father have arrived at an enclave called the Sea, a staging-post between migrations, with only a few possessions, among them three volumes from The Great Voyagers encyclopedia series. In this mysterious and shape-shifting building made of time, pasts and futures collide. Lina befriends her neighbours: Bento, a Jewish scholar in seventeenth-century Amsterdam, excommunicated for his radical thought; Blucher, a philosopher in 1930s Germany fleeing Nazi persecution; and Jupiter, a poet of Tang Dynasty China, whose brilliance goes unrecognised by the state. Their stories fuse with those of philosophers from previous centuries: Baruch Spinoza, Hannah Arendt and the Chinese poet Du Fu. And as Lina's ailing father becomes less well, he recounts how he and Lina came to reside in the Sea, and what his betrayals cost their family and others. Exploring the role of fate in history, the migratory nature of humanity and the place of faith in our world, The Book of Records addresses fundamental questions about creativity, and good and evil.