The Book of Records

Thien’s fourth novel (following the Booker Prize–shortlisted Do Not Say We Have Nothing) melds sci-fi with historical literary fiction, using time as a lens through which to discuss the underlying questions that haunt humanity. Crossing centuries, each of the novel’s four time periods (including the spaces in between them) is meticulously described to set the scene. The novel features Lina, the anchor to the story, plus three other prominent characters from different eras (Bento, a 17th-century Jewish scholar; Blucher, a philosopher in 1930s Germany; and Jupiter, a Tang Dynasty poet), whose stories play out separately and in the strange, shape-shifting building where they all collide. Thien asks readers to consider what it means to be human and illustrates the concept of life itself as a universal multigenerational experience—a difficult undertaking that the book navigates with nuance.