Books I've Read More Than Once

Time And Again:An illustrated novel by Jack Finney

Einstein's theory of time was that we are like people in a boat drifting along a winding river. We see the present, but the past and the future are hidden around the curves. Still, they are there. How would it be if one could step out of the boat and walk back around the bend to the past? This is what Si Morley does in Time and Again.

-front flap

This is my second copy of the book. I lost the first copy when I gave it to one of the pilots at Pioneer Airways. He was doing an overnight and realized he had nothing to read. Soon after this the airline went under and I never got the book back. I found this copy at the Old Algonquin Bookstore out on East Colfax. The author John Dunning owned the store and when I brought the book up to the counter to pay for it he told me that Time And Again was the only book by another author that he wished he had written himself.

I have always been fascinated by the concept of time travel. Finney's premise is that Einstein is right, we can step out of the boat and on to the shore. The only thing keeping us in the present is the billions of invisible threads of fact that bind us to "now." Cut these threads and time travel is possible. Simon Morley goes back to 1882 New York City and becomes involved in something he doesn't really understand until it's almost to late.

It's a wonderful book. Each time I read it I get lost in the past that Finney has recreated. It may be time to read it again.