Review & How To Read S by Doug Dorst and J.J. Abrams

Have you ever held a book in your hands and not known how to read it? I have and it was a completely new experience. S was written by Doug Dorst but it was conceived by J.J. Abrams (Lost, Fringe) and the author is often listed as Dorst or Abrams or both.

Brace yourself because it's about to become complicated. The book is called S and consists of a hardback book called Ship of Theseus by V.M. Straka. (Confused yet?) Inside this beautifully produced hardback edition of Ship of Theseus are margin notes between two people, Eric and Jen.

You can easily identify the contributors from their handwriting style, and the first margin notes in pencil belong to Eric, then Jen finds the book and begins to leave her notes. As the book continues, the colour of ink they use changes several times, indicating the point in time at which they left their comments, some of which are even on the same page. You can think of this as a long conversation between two people over time as they leave their comments inside the book in the library for the other person to pick up. You also need to suspend your disbelief that two students would continue their protracted conversation in this time consuming and convoluted fashion rather than moving to a texting platform.

The conversation discusses the book within a book Ship of Theseus and the author Straka in addition to their personal lives and are colour coded as follows:

• Eric's notes before meeting Jen are in pencil.
• Eric is then using black ink and Jen's replies are in blue ink.
• Eric than uses green ink and Jen uses orange.
• Eric changes to red and Jen uses purple ink.
• Finally, Eric and Jen both use black ink.

As if that wasn't enough, throughout the book are various inserts that further add to the story. They include items like postcards, letters, newspaper cuttings, photographs and even a napkin. When I bought the book it came in a lovely slip case and the items were evenly dispersed throughout the book. I tried to keep them from falling out when I started reading but it soon became apparent that was going to be impossible. I frustratingly considered making a list detailing the page number location for each item but thankfully a helpful reader had already done that. (Check out the Ship of Theseus Wiki where you can see each of the inserts and if you zoom in you can see the margin notes between Eric and Jen).

Oh, and did I mention there are also footnotes? THIS is why I had no idea where to start reading S. When considered as a whole, S is a genre busting and revolutionary interactive book and puzzle in one and it's been staring me down on my bookshelf for far too long.

I wondered if I should read Ship of Theseus first. Should I read the margin notes as I go, or read the colour coded conversations in chronological order? Should I look at the inserts at the relevant page or study them at the end?

I'm not kidding when I say that I had to turn to Dr Google and found that those who love this book recommend reading Ship of Theseus first, without marginalia or inserts. Some reviewers recommend reading S a total of 4-6 times in order to fully appreciate it, Ship of Theseus first, then again with the first coloured margin notes, then again with the following coloured marginalia and inserts and so on. Phew!

So it was with a great deal of trepidation that I began reading and what I discovered immediately is that my eyes naturally drifted to the comments from Eric and Jen in the margins. I couldn't help it! I also found myself reading the footnotes and their abstract nature and tiny font annoyed me.

The basic plot is that the protagonist has amnesia, and finds himself kidnapped and taken to a ship. Those familiar with the ancient Greek paradox that questions whether an object remains the same if all components of it are completely replaced over time will be nodding in recognition. If every part of a ship is removed and replaced is it still the same Ship of Theseus? And if a ship is constructed from the parts removed, is that also the Ship of Theseus? And if so, which is the true Ship of Theseus?

Our protagonist ends up on this ship that is constantly changing but I didn't find an answer to this thought experiment because the plot was too bizarre. On a quest from the beginning to find out who he is and where he's from, the protagonist struggles to survive and ends up fighting what he considers to be a just cause. And then at the end he decides he no longer cares who he was/is, ummm WTF?

There were some moments of good writing I enjoyed, like this character observation about a newly met companion:

"Osfour has kept up a steady patter of nonsense (bland and meandering stories about people S. does not know, complaints about his digestive health, and exegeses on the volatile price of a particular tea and the aphrodisiac qualities of a particular wine), the constancy of which S has come to find companionable." Page 231

While all of this is happening, Eric and Jen are discussing the author V.M Straka and exploring a conspiracy theory as to the true identity of the reclusive left-wing writer.

"What does it all add up to, this farrago of images and words and voices and lives and nonsense and rants and fever-dreams and soliloquies and abject lies? What is he making, line by line, page by page?" Page 310

This quote from the book pretty much sums up the entire reading experience for me. I love the detailed concept of a central story, the layered conversations between two readers in the margins along with the intriguing variety of inserts, however the plot was too fantastical and impenetrable for me to become invested.

I'm guessing the moral is to fight against evil wherever we find it, and even if we don't believe we can stop it, every individual should at least try. You could apply this universal message to politics, environment and conflict throughout the world, but once I realised I didn’t particularly enjoy the central story, I found I had very little interest in pursuing Eric and Jen’s conversations about the book or their interest in the author’s identity or associated conspiracy. Nor did I want to spend more valuable reading time exploring this another 3-4 times just in case I was missing a transformational reading experience.

The production value alone is worth buying this book and why it'll remain proudly on my bookshelves but ultimately I've decided not to continue the reading process.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

Review: Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz is a modern whodunnit with a confident nod to vintage crime novels and a tipping of the hat to the golden age of detective fiction. Susan Ryeland is an editor at a publishing house tasked with editing the next whodunnit by bestselling author Alan Conway. An unpleasant man, the book begins with a short prologue from Susan's perspective before we dive straight into Conway's new manuscript.

I felt a little wrong footed in the beginning with the introduction of so many characters in the small fictional village of Saxby-on-Avon, however I needn't have worried. Conway - the author of the manuscript - kept the reader on track with helpful hints along the way. Set in the 1950s, there are a number of murders in the manuscript and when we leave Conway's work and return to Susan Ryeland, a contemporary murder takes her by complete surprise.

"You'd have thought that after twenty years editing murder mysteries I'd have noticed when I found myself in the middle of one." Page 60

Susan is a likeable character and successful editor and I enjoyed watching her step out from behind the safety of her desk and begin investigating in the role of amateur detective.

Horowitz generously gives us multiple layered murders to contemplate and solve and I really enjoyed the meta nature of the murder mystery within a murder mystery. As if this weren't enough, Susan makes mention of real world authors and books in the text which added to my enjoyment and will appeal to other self-proclaimed book lovers.

Susan reflects:

"I've always loved whodunnits. I've not just edited them. I've read them for pleasure throughout my life, gorging on them actually. You must know that feeling when it's raining outside and the heating's on and you lose yourself, utterly, in a book. You read and you read and you feel the pages slipping through your fingers until suddenly there are fewer in your right hand than there are in your left and you want to slow down but you still hurtle on towards a conclusion you can hardly bear to discover. That is the particular power of the whodunnit which has, I think, a special place within the general panoply of literary fiction because, of all characters, the detective enjoys a particular, indeed a unique relationship with the reader." Page 156

You can't help but smile at the likelihood Horowitz is sharing his own love of whodunnits here in the guise of Susan. On a meta level, he's also showing us that the detective enjoys a unique relationship with the reader - and by extension the creator of the detective - and that he cherishes it greatly.

The only part of Magpie Murders I didn't enjoy was the confusing page numbering system. The book begins with a short 3 page prologue, then 219 pages of Alan Conway's manuscript entitled Magpie Murders - An Atticus Pund Mystery. Conway's manuscript is helpfully printed in a different font (possibly Courier) and the author demarcates the transition back to the original text by changing the font again. However the page numbering picks up from the prologue beginning on page 4. Confused yet?

And THEN, on page 196 of the text, when we return to the manuscript, the numbering picks up from page 219 where the manuscript previously left off. This confusing page numbering system swaps at least once more in the book and I'm not sure it helps divide the book between manuscript and narrative. The difference in font style more than adequately distinguishes between the two writing styles and without this poor stylistic choice, this would have been a five star read for me.

Published in 2016, Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz is the first book in the Susan Ryeland series with Moonflower Murders published in 2020 and Marble Hall Murders published in 2025 to follow. Magpie Murders has since been adapted for TV and now that I've finished reading it, I'm looking forward to watching the 2022 drama series later in the year. I also have Moonflower Murders on my bookshelf thanks to a generous friend who let me borrow her copy and as soon as I've read it, I look forward to watching the 2024 TV series adaptation.

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz is highly recommended for those who enjoy a clever meta novel with a mystery within a mystery stuffed full of clues, colourful suspects and even the odd anagram.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

Review: Dinner At The Night Library by Hika Harada

* Copy courtesy of Simon & Schuster *

A bestseller in Japan, Dinner at the Night Library by Hika Harada is translated by Philip Gabriel (translator of The Travelling Cat Chronicles) and is my first foray into the seemingly exploding genre of Japanese comfort novels. The genre contains character-driven, cozy, feel-good stories set in everyday locations like bookstores or cafes and focusses on themes of relationships and loneliness. Usually featuring an illustrated cover and written to be uplifting in its examination of human connection in everyday life, I believe this was a fair representation of the genre.

The Night Library of the title is located outside Tokyo and contains collections of books both owned and written by famous authors now deceased.

"An old library . . . a library devoted just to writers' collections . . . definitely a most odd, unconventional sort of place." Page 112

Our protagonist Otaha loves working with books and when she receives a message inviting her to apply for a job at the Night Library she can't believe her luck.

Open only at night, staff working at the library share her love of literature although nobody has ever met the owner. A series of workplace projects begin to take shape as collections are entrusted to the care of the library and books mysteriously appear on the shelves without being catalogued.

Before being employed by the Night Library, one of the characters worked in a used book store where books were judged on how new, clean and popular they were. I was shocked to read one of the practices employed in the used book trade:

"With old books, we'd just clean them up, using sandpaper to clean off what was called in the trade the upper part, the outside of the pages, which get faded and dirty, and then sell them." Page 183

What? Surely this isn't a 'thing' but I put the book down to do a quick search and swiftly stumbled onto a bunch of videos showing book lovers how to remove foxing and yellowed page edges with a fine grit piece of sandpaper. I'm still deciding how I feel about this, would you ever do it?

Back to the book, and the library employs a dedicated cook to prepare dishes from the books held in the collection and I was certainly hungry while reading this cozy mystery. Otaha gets to know her coworkers and we learn some of their backstories as she tries to work out who the mysterious owner is.

Dinner at the Night Library by Hika Harada is a gentle cozy mystery with plenty of Japanese culture and a tonne of Japanese books and authors mentioned. Not having read widely of Japanese fiction, I couldn't enjoy the references or bookish chat between the characters but I'm sure many other readers will.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans is an epistolary novel, told entirely in letters to and from our main character, 73 year old Sybil Van Antwerp who has been writing and sending letters out into the world since she was nine years old. Sybil writes to her brother, best friend, daughter, neighbour and many more recipients besides, and some of these letters - and their charming replies - are included in the book.

Sybil writes and sends letters to guard against the impermanency of email and text messages and her writing is witty and full of humour. Her correspondence includes many references to the books she and others are reading which I found interesting. I also enjoyed the clever reference to 84 Charing Cross Road in one of the letters from Sybil's daughter who sees the book by Helene Hanff and thinks of her mother.

Sybil believes letters are the original form of civility in the world, the preservation of which has to be of some value we cannot yet see.

"Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle, or, a better metaphor, if dated, the links of a long chain, and even if those links are never put back together, which they will certainly never be, even if they remain for the rest of time dispersed across the earth like the fragile blown seeds of a dying dandelion, isn't there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one's life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?" Page 44

The concept of finding an old letter like this reminds me of the letter from 7 year old James VI of Scotland in the 1570s thanking his foster mother for sending him some fruit. If you haven't seen it, I encourage you to check it out. We just never know how long our letters will remain on this earth do we? I hope that if anyone has any letters or cards from me they no longer want to keep they'll offer to return them before sending them to landfill. It'd be quite the trip down memory lane, that's for sure.

I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Sybil and her circle of family and friends and how her life at 73 undergoes subtle yet significant changes throughout the book as her years progress.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans is a moving, uplifting and entertaining read and I can highly recommend it.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods

The Lost Bookshop by Irish author Evie Woods is historical fiction meets magical realism with lashings of romance. Published in 2023 to great acclaim, the novel unfolds in alternating chapters and features three main characters.

In 1921, Opaline has run away to France to avoid an arranged marriage at the hands of her brother and finds a job working for Shakespeare and Company bookshop. With an eye for buying and selling antiquarian books her overbearing brother is hot on her trail, sending her to an asylum when he catches up with her in Dublin and finds her pregnant out of wedlock.

The contemporary narrative is set in Dublin where Martha escapes an abusive relationship and takes a job working as a housekeeper for the eccentric Mrs Bowden. Henry is a PhD student searching for a rare manuscript and a bookshop he walked into but can never find again when he meets Martha.

All three narratives were first person perspectives and there were many literary references and bookish quotes to keep book lovers turning the pages. I particularly enjoyed this one concerning the motivations of a rare book dealer:

"Never trust a book dealer who lets sentimentality get in the way. I had to own it because there is only one of it in the world - that's all there is to it. If I own it, then no one else can. I have known men to hazard their fortunes, go long journeys halfway about the world, forget friendships, even lie, cheat, and steal, all for the gain of a book." Page 169

The author does an excellent job creating a bookish atmosphere and I longed to browse the aisles of the Shakespeare and Company bookshop in addition to the mysterious shelves of the lost bookshop of the title.

However, there were romantic relationships in all three narratives that quickly grew tiresome. All too often, romance bogs down a far more interesting plot and this was the case for me here. I also found it difficult to accept that both Opaline and Martha would be ready for romance without more breathing time after their respective prior experiences.

There are some significant elements of magical realism in the story - largely focussed around Martha for some inexplicable reason - and most of these were creative and absorbing, but never adequately explained.

At the end there were a number of loose narrative threads that were left unresolved and too many unanswered questions about the true identity of Mrs Bowden when I wanted needed answers.

The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods will appeal to book lovers who enjoy historical fiction, magical realism and romance and who don't mind finding the meaning between the lines.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald

I received a copy of The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald as a mystery book at a GoodReads Melbourne catch up and it's been sitting on my TBR pile since 2018. The reason it's been collecting dust is because it's a romance story with a bookish theme and I don't really enjoy the romance genre. The reason it hasn't been 'moved on' to a friend or free little library is down to the fact that this is also a book about books. Needing a light and easy read recently, I finally picked it up and was pleasantly surprised to finish it.

Sara Lindqvist lives in Sweden and has a penpal by the name of Amy who lives in a small town called Broken Wheel in Iowa. Invited to visit and stay a few months to continue their shared love of books and reading, Sara takes the plunge only to discover upon arrival that Amy has passed away.

Translated from Swedish, what happens next forms the body of this charming story and the letters back and forth between Sara and Amy are scattered throughout the novel. The inevitable romance made itself known early on, together with several other - predictable - romantic entanglements. Sara's internal chatter (what could he possibly see in me?) grated on my nerves as I'd expect, but thankfully it was somewhat tempered by the setting up of a bookshop and re-energising of the town. The inhabitants of the small country town are stuck in their ways and some are entertainingly cliched.

Published in 2013, my favourite character by far was George and I enjoyed the character of Caroline even more so than Sara. Here Caroline reflects:

"She had never been able to help people like Amy could. Amy always seemed to know precisely what people wanted to hear. Caroline knew only what they should hear, and the two were very rarely the same thing." Page 24

Sara is seeking a sense of belonging and exploring what constitutes a family and readers will need to suspend their disbelief at the ending but I'm sure many will readily do so. Obviously life doesn't work like that but this is a tale offering escapism and a HEA; reinforcing the reason this genre rarely features in my reading line-up.

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald is about finding a sense of belonging and will appeal to bookworms who enjoy novels about books and bookshops with a generous dollop of romance.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: The Book Lovers' Miscellany by Claire Cock-Starkey

The Book Lovers' Miscellany by Claire Cock-Starkey is a cute little pint sized hardback packed with bibliophilic facts and fictions. Quirky chapter titles include: Movies That Started Life As Books, Identifying a First Edition, The Twenty Most Influential Academic Books of All Time, Oddest Title of the Year, Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts, Famous Last Lines and more.

Some of the chapters are short and snappy at just a few paragraphs while others are in listicle format making this perfect for dipping in and out of. If you're a traditionalist like me who wouldn't dream of 'dipping in and out' of a book and insists on reading a book 'properly' - front to back - then you'll find a mix/combination of topics that didn't seem united by chronology or subject matter.

The content in The Book Lovers' Miscellany is definitely of a miscellaneous nature, which even extended to bookish gossip in the form of a supposedly well-known estrangement between A.S. Byatt and her sister Margaret Drabble.

"According to newspaper reports, the sisters have apparently been estranged since childhood due to their intense sibling rivalry and are said not to read each other's books due to the autobiographical elements in their work." Page 31

I didn't even know these talented and accomplished authors were sisters, so learning that they don't share their literary success together as they should was sad.

Reading the chapter on Most Prolific Writers, I was shocked to learn Enid Blyton wrote more than 800 books, and while I was aware of Barbara Cartland's prolific writing career, seeing in print that she produced 723 novels in her lifetime was seriously impressive.

I love stationery, but in a chapter about Quills I found this astonishing:

"John of Tilbury, a scholar in the household of Thomas Becket in the twelfth century, described how a scribe taking a full day of dictation would need between sixty and a hundred quills sharpened and readied." Page 41

Wow! I'm presuming you'd need a trunk or sack for the quills. And what did they do for the assizes during that period? The Book Lovers' Miscellany by Claire Cock-Starkey is full of facts and trivia, much of which I've read about elsewhere*, yet still managed to be entertained by again.

Recommended for trivia junkies and readers who love books about books. You know who you are!

*You may also enjoy these books for booklovers:
The Book on the Bookshelf by Henry Petroski
The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History by Edward Brooke-Hitching

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: Bibliomaniac by Robin Ince

Here's what I know for sure after reading this book. Robin Ince is extremely well read. Robin Ince knows a LOT about books. Robin Ince buys an extraordinary amount of books. Robin Ince is a bibliomaniac.

In his aptly titled book Bibliomaniac - An Obsessive's Tour of the Bookshops of Britain, author Robin Ince sets out to visit more than 100 bookshops in 100 days. The year was 2021 and bookshops were welcoming authors back for events. Reading this travelogue of sorts about his experiences along the way was interesting.

My introduction to Robin Ince came courtesy of attending the Professor Brian Cox Universal World Tour in June 2019 and a few years later, the Professor Brian Cox Horizons - A 21st Century Space Odyssey in October 2022. Robin Ince was the award-winning comedian and warm-up act for Cox and finding out he was an obsessive book lover piqued my interest.

Ince declares early on that books define him, books are the reason he stopped drinking heavily and that he sleeps with books piled on the bed and I'll admit I began to worry a little. In the Introduction he lays his bibliomania bare:

"At one stage my house became so swamped with books that I donated more than 1,000 of them to Leicester Prison and got rid of a further 5,000 more to charities. And yet I know that my house is still overrun, always on the cusp of being justifiable grounds for divorce." Page 4

This was another dual audio and print reading experience, and the occasional mention of an interesting sounding book or anecdote motivated me to put this down and head off to find out more. Here's one in reference to Charles Darwin in Chapter 6:

"There are no new tattoos to see after the show tonight, but I have a happy conversation with a shy young person who has recently become inspired to study horticulture. This leads to yet another conversation about Charles Darwin, this time about his earthworm experiments - any excuse to bring up the bassoon." Page 160

There were many in jokes along the way like this one about the bassoon* but I didn't understand many of them because I lacked the broad depth of knowledge on a variety of subjects required to chuckle along and marvel at the author's treasure trove of interesting and engaging facts.

Ince readily confesses that he doesn't read books end to end or sequentially, and instead he dips in and out of them in a fashion that started to stress me out. I have a completely different approach to reading and acquiring books, and despite our shared love of books and reading, I couldn't relate to his reading style:

"I am sometimes asked how I read so much. I commit the cardinal sin among some bookish people: I leave books unfinished. I hop in and out of them, grabbing an anecdote, an idea or a philosophy and then putting them on the teetering 'to be continued' pile." Page 4

I don't mind leaving a book unfinished, but I don't understand how a reader can grab an anecdote or philosophy in any detail with this approach and Ince readily confesses that in his desire to know everything, he ends up knowing nothing. Here's a taste of his reading style, can you relate?

"I have half a bottle of red, a packet of pistachio cookies and solitude. I spread out my books and read five random pages from each one. Short of focus, I decide not to focus and read erratically, bouncing in and out of books until, exhausted by other people's ideas, I fall asleep with a book across my face." Page 266

While that might sound like absolute heaven to some book lovers, it sounds haphazard and chaotic to me and I found it hard to relate to his specific type of bibliomania.

Some of the conversations Ince has with customers, event attendees and booksellers sound truly fascinating and I bet meeting him in person would be a stimulating experience. I love hearing how he curates a different pile of books in each bookshop and uses them to inform the topic of his speech. This is a terrific way to ensure his presentations are always unique and never become stale, they also enable a last minute, ad hoc approach to the event that made the organiser in me feel uneasy.

Often rushing for the train or running overtime during his events - albeit with permission, but honestly, who's going to say no? - Ince relies on lifts from friends, booksellers and agents to get him to and from train stations and the more than 100 bookshops visited; often staying the night wherever he can.

The author is the kind of guy who buys his own books (Page 194) and in one chapter, he recalls taking a half full bottle of wine from his event to drink on the train trip home (Page 203) while reading a new acquisition. Barely mentioning his wife or family, Ince does tell us his wife doesn't want him bringing books back from the book tour, so he sneaks home at one point to offload a tonne of books and then stealthily leaves again. What a guy!

Despite considering myself somewhat well read and reasonably knowledgable about books, I could probably count on one hand the number of books I'd actually heard of or read myself from the hundreds mentioned throughout the 300+ pages. While I focus on non fiction and relatively recent fiction, the author's interests seem to orbit around non fiction (so many memoirs) and horror novels.

Aspects of my reaction to Bibliomaniac reminded me of my experience reading Back Story by David Mitchell, in so far as I think I'd have been better off admiring the work of both authors and comedians from afar, rather than delving deeper and reading their memoir.

Bibliomaniac by Robin Ince wasn't the TBR expanding experience I hoped it would be. I didn't add a single book mentioned to my TBR although I did do some serious Googling. I never found myself looking forward to the next chapter, wondering, "oooh, I wonder what he’ll find in Leeds" or "I wonder what obscure title he'll discover in the 37th Oxfam charity shop of the tour."

I've concluded Bibliomaniac by Robin Ince has a somewhat limited reading appeal, so readers familiar with the bookshops on the tour and who are extraordinarily well read, love collecting rare and valuable books, enjoy horror and find almost any topic fascinating will love this. I find many topics interesting too, but I don't buy books with a plan to never read more than a few pages.

* Apparently Darwin tested the hearing of earthworms by having his son play his bassoon really loudly to prove they don't have ears or a sense of hearing.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown

* Copy courtesy of Penguin Random House *

The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown has the potential to take out 'best cover design' for 2024 as determined here at Carpe Librum. Let's just take a minute to soak in the beauty that is the dark blue Victorian damask wallpaper background, punctuated by the inviting bookish staircase made from gorgeous looking leather bound books with subtle gold detailing, echoed around the corners of the front cover.

In the design, the door is a book and this is The Book of Doors, what's not to love?

Astonishingly well written and structured for a debut, The Book of Doors immediately grabbed my attention with settings to tempt, tease and tantalise any book lover:

"Just like the store, the house was full of books - no shelf was bare, no book alone and seeking company - but it was more than that. The house was full of warm corners and quiet places, pleasantly creaking floorboards and draughts of air coming from unseen gaps. The lighting was soft, and the colours muted and warm, interrupted only by the shimmering dark green of the trees outside when glimpsed through windows in passing. It was a building that welcomed people who wanted comfort and silence, who wanted space to contemplate. It had an air of formality, but not stiffness, like a smartly dressed grandfather telling a rude joke." Page 135-136

Our characters fall in love with the house and I did too! Cassie works as a bookseller at a bookshop in New York and the story begins when a regular customer gives her a book with an inscription inside. Cassie is over the moon when she learns the book is a one of a kind with the ability to turn any door into a door to anywhere. Cassie then discovers there are more books with differing powers, actively being sought by eccentric collectors, nefarious actors and scary people who travel the world hunting the books for their own dark purposes.

You should know, this is a fantasy novel and there is time travel. In fact, in the words of Drummond Fox (one of the novel's characters), there is a little 'time-travel jiggery-pokery' to untangle but thankfully the author breaks it down by cleverly providing a detailed explanation of two types of time travel. There is the open model and the closed model, and they're explained to the reader in a conversation flashback as follows:

"In the open model, you can travel into the past and change events so that your present is consequently changed also. This is what you see in science-fiction stories. You go back and do something and history changes." Page 153

Yes! Reading this I was instantly reminded of 11.22.63 by Stephen King, where the main character (MC) goes back in time in an attempt to prevent the assassination of JFK. The flashback sequence in The Book of Doors continues to explain the closed model:

"You cannot change events from what has already happened. If you go back and do something in the past, then that already happened in the past and is part of history. It is part of what made your present be the present that it is, the present that you departed from when you went into the past." Page 153

It's the latter form of time travel experienced by the characters in The Book of Doors, and thankfully I wasn't too lost as it seemed the author maintained a tight grip on the reins of time-travel lore. The writing is rich and evocative and I loved learning about the other special books, the powers they held and the motives of those seeking them. The book of pain was the most intriguing as it has the power to cause and remove pain. I was most entertained during Cassie's early exploration using the book of doors and managed to keep up with the narrative when it otherwise could have been a tad timey-wimey. My only sticking point was the origin story for the books was a little too much for this book lover.

The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown is an impressive debut and the first possible contender for my Top 5 Books of 2024. Highly recommended for book lovers and readers who enjoyed The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow or believe books are magic portals, even when they're not.

Not sure? Read a free extract or listen to a free 5 minute sample of the audiobook on the publisher's website.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★