Madeleine Thien is masterful, erudite and enchanting, weaving so much together and leaving so much unspoken and yet so much said in the spaces in between. The Book of Records is such a scholarly book and yet has such a light touch, often leaving the reader wondering what is happening, right up until the end. The Sea: what or where is it .....it's a delight to try to work it out and yet, for so long, not to know whether one will ever be allowed to or not. This is now - and will remain - one of my very favourite books.

This novel’s intriguing premise drew me in, but it wasn’t long before I felt all at sea with the multiple stories within stories and the shape shifting dimensions of place, reality, and time itself, which weren’t always worked in seamlessly.

There are several eminently quotable thoughts within this eclectic mix of sci-fi, fantasy, fable, individual and ancestral stories, political discussion and nuanced narrative, coupled with philosophical profundity like this:

“In the long run, he read, every lie that survives into the future becomes a truth.”

The clever construct, immense research required, and sensitive, poetic writing reveals this book deserves its place in the literary fiction genre. While I’m in awe of the application and artistry, it frequently felt laborious and somewhat confusing to read.

And it struck me that it might just be too clever for its own good by putting quirkiness above comprehension. Some readers will be enthralled, of course, by the book’s convoluted, questioning nature, its variety and depth.

Others might feel as if they’re spun sideways by the dense weightiness of the text. I was disappointed to discover that I didn’t have the necessary focus and concentration to follow the stories easily myself.

The book of records? Hints suggest it could be governmental, the watchers or the watched, or even one kept by God. Sadly, I gave up before finishing it, so I didn’t find out. Perhaps you will have more luck. Thanks to the author, Granta Publications and NetGalley for the eARC.

Madeleine Thien’s previous novel “Do Not Think We Have Nothing” achieved the rare (one of I think 24 books to achieve) it double of being shortlisted for both the Booker Prize (2016 – where I ranked it 2/13 on the longlist) and the Women’s Prize (2017) as well as winning Canada’s biggest prize – the Giller Prize.



At its heart it featured a story within a story, one secretly reproduced and added to across the generations – the so called Book of Records – and she has used that to give this book the title (although I don’t think referring to the same book).



The opening of the book – and to a large part its framing device throughout - reminded me of Susanna Clark’s “Piranesi” perhaps crossed with Moshin Hamad’s “Exit West”.



The book is narrated by Lina, some fifty years after she (then a seven year old) and her father (“a systems engineer managing the structures of cyberspace. He had worked for the government and, later, against it”) flee their home City of Foshan as political exiles/migrants, leaving behind Lina’s mother, her “Aunt” Oh (who took her father in as a child and supported him through his education) and her three year older brother Wei.



They end up in the Sea – a mysterious meeting point of migrants; for many just a staging post them to continue on their voyages – although with some residents like Lina and her father staying much longer; an enclave of torus like corridors and Escher style staircases; and a place where space and time seem to meet, meld, loop and warp.



Lina and her father have with them three volumes of a collection of ninety books – The Great Lives of Voyagers – whose tales obsessed Lina and her brother: the three volumes being about Du Fu the 8th Century Chinese poet ; Baruch Spinoza the 17th century Dutch born Portuguese-Jewish descended pre-Enlightenment philosopher; Hannah Arendt the German born Jewish political theorist.



In their second year, a hidden (or just revealed) doorway takes Lina into an atrium where she meets three people – an old Chinese man Jupiter, a 40 year old man Bento, and a sixty something woman Blucher and when the three encounter the three volumes, they begin to tell the stories of the three “adventurers” as they seem to remember or forget them.



<blockquote><i> “The only way to really remember is to forget everything and let time fill the story up. To reach it through a different doorway. Things have to inhabit the living or else disappear from the world and cease to exist. If things survive it's not through abstract thought, but the realities that gave rise to those thoughts." </i></blockquote>



From there the bulk of the rest of the novel – is effectively lightly fictionalised/imagined-but-true-to-widely-received-facts biographies of the three characters.



It is in many ways an odd criticism to make of a book which moves across decades and countries so freely, but in many ways I felt the book rather circumscribed itself with its concentration on the three historical lives, as the detail given was greater than my interest in each character – just as Lina was effectively frustrated her father was only able to take three volumes of the ninety in “The Great Lives of Voyagers” I wished the author had added more volumes to her own tale. And, like one of my criticisms of her previous novel, I did at time feel like I was reading a Wiki treatiese, although to be fair to the author the biographies in many ways fill in the less documented part of each character’s lives (Du Gu’s drifting after his examination failures and his increasing belief he has been overlooked both as a poet and for imperial career advancement, Spinoza’s time in exile, Arendt’s escape across France into Spain and Portugal). This I think is the author’s intention as declared in the Acknowledgments – where she says that the book (and particularly the three biographies) within it “dwells in the moments when biographical certainties surrounding Du Fu, Spoinoza and Arendts are non-existent, scarce or blurred. In this way I wished to explore no only individual lives – but the times themselves, timelessness and namelessness”. – and I do also think the book as at its strongest in the way it captures those times, times when people are fleeing in the face of overwhelming national catastrophes – the An Lushan rebellion, the plague outbreak in Amsterdam, Spain still reeling from the Civil War and now dealing with the refugees fleeing the World War.



I found Spinoza’s story the hardest to follow and enjoy. Perhaps necessarily given his rather limited geographical movements much of his section consists of his philosophy (and I am not particularly interested in that topic which does I have to say curtail enjoyment here a little like my lack of interest in Bach’s music did with her previous novel). Arendt’s seemed the most conventional – and other than her relationship with Benji (Walter Benjamin) and fidelity to her biographical record, could I felt have been a more general story of a refugee fleeing Nazi-ism. Du Fu’s was the most intriguing and imaginative I felt.



But I would have preferred more details on The Sea and when for Part 2 of the Novel “The Ethics” (easily the shortest of its three parts) the story switches to her father’s story and we understand the earlier comment about his involvement “for the government and later against it” and the book moves into a sci-fi type world of the control of cyber-systems and cyber-territory I found this a welcome break from the biographical detail and also a clever thematic link back to the world of The Sea. As a result it was a little disappointing that Part III, after some initial extracts from Lina’s journeys away from the Sea, reverted to the three biographies.



Overall, this is a highly thought provoking and intelligently written novel – but one I perhaps, at least on a first read, admired more than I enjoyed. Some of this I think relates to the lack of other reviews and author interviews and I look forward to revisiting the book again after publication (and would not be surprised if that revisit is part of a major prize listing).

A novel that brings together stories of displacement and uprooting across time and space, finding beauty and sadness and affinities between Du Fu, Spinoza, Arendt and the fictional characters from near-future China. Profoundly moving, poignant and horribly timely, in a time of refugee crisis, government inhumanity in US and Europe, rise of fascism. Thien's story is intricately constructed and thought-out. I wanted there to be more at the end - but that's also quite fitting.

I read this having read and (rated five stars) Do Not Say We Have Nothing. I think I expected this to be similar, especially as the idea of a "Book of Records" is explored in Do Not Say We Have Nothing, and a lot of the themes are similar, but this was a vastly different book, clearly intended for a very different audience. There was a large amount of philosophical debate between the characters that left me a bit lost, meaning I didn't really get much from the conversations or understand what the writer was trying to say. All of the characters (except maybe Hannah) had very similar voices, everyone spoke in a very similar, highly academic and intelligent way (including the young children!) which made it quite difficult to get attached to the characters or even distinguish them. That being said, I love the concept of it, the imagery of the Sea was beautiful and the idea of these strangers who Lina meets retelling the stories from her books worked really well. I feel like my disappointment in it was largely my own fault as I expected something different, and the philosophy focus is not something I am particularly interested in, but even so I could appreciate it was a really beautiful novel.

Unfortunately this one I have to DNF. I don't DNF lightly, especially for an ARC. I told myself I could DNF if I at least got through 50%, but at 47% I'm close enough to call it a day.

This book is so confusing. There are so many names, so many time periods, and so few line breaks or explanations. Every sentence seems to start with "X character did Y", in a monotonous sort of hell. One paragraph was just a very, very long list.

Maybe this book gets better and makes sense when you get further in, but given it has put me into a 2 week long reading slump and I still didn't even reach 50%, I don't think it's for me. I hope it does find its audience, as I'm sure when all the threads are pulled together it's going to have a wonderful ending. I just had no idea who anyone was or why I should even care about them, at any point.

’m initially very confused reading this book it has a slightly nightmare like quality that makes you feel you don’t really think that you’re understanding what you are reading which in turn makes you feel like you are loosing your mind
Really need a an elderly man and his daughter staying at the edge of this sea in what appears to be a staging post prior to onward migration to unknown places. This place of the worldly and magical lacking elements of reality and somehow appears to be able to receive people from different time periods. From the people passing through the sea, we hear stories of their migration and the reasons for it.
There are stories about forced migration in World War II with Germans caught in Paris at the start of war being interned in a camp in the south of France. These sections are naturalistic and easy to follow,
The novel covers issues about our feelings of nationality and how this influences how we see ourselves and the world around us for example, the Jewish family stripped of their nationality by Hitler’s Nazi government are suddenly at sea in the world
The paragraph that sums it up their feelings for me was“The world German is so much misused that one can hardly use it at all anymore. “ it described the mixed feelings of Germans who are Jews and therefore lose their Germaness and nationality
There are other stories recurring throughout the novel set in 15th century Amsterdam and China
All these people we meet in the naturalistic stories seem able to meet each other at this staging post on the edge of the sea where they find themselves telling each other stories of their lives as they wait for onward connections. I have to admit I found it hard to know which of the characters in the staging post of the sea were the ones described in the stories.
Another theme of the novel seems to be the importance of books the father and daughter travel choosing three out of a large series of books/ and Encyclopedia like about explorers. The family choose 3 to carry with them seemingly randomly and regret the ones they had to leave behind almost like their members of their family. whereas other characters in displacement camp carry books with them but
are unable to read them in their stress. The pages seem to be blank.
There is also a lot of clever philosophy and ethics stuff that occurs repeatedly throughout the novel which I’m afraid I didn’t really understand these quotations rather washed over me in my ignorance.

I think this is the kind of literary novel that may well find itself on the Booker prize long list . I can imagine other reviews or find it easier to follow than I did.

I read an early copy of the novel on NetGalley UK in return for an unbiased review. The book is published in the UK on the 8th of May 2025 by Granta publications.
This review will appear on NetGalley UK, StoryGraph, Goodreads and my book blog bionicSarahSbooks.wordpress.com. After publication will also appear on Amazon UK.

I really liked the premise for this book and was happy to receive an arc copy but I found the writing style confusing and didn't follow the different stories well enough to become involved with the characters. I found myself rereading and skipping back and forth to try and make sense of it. I did finish it and found the ending disappointing too. Sadly this was not a book for me, although I'm sure many others will love it.
With thanks to Netgalley and Granta Publications for an arc copy in return for an honest review.

Lina has arrived with her father at a transit camp called "The Sea" at some point in our future ( pehaps in a 100 years or so) when climate change is causing massive movements of people. Lina's mother and brother's whereabouts are unknown and as she waits at the camp and her becomes ill, Lina constantly re reads the 3 books from the "Great Voyagers" encyclopedia set she has brought with her from home as well as getting to know some fellow camp mates. These new friends tell their stories and they become fused with the histories if real historic people such as a Tang dynasty poet and a woman escaping the nazis. The novel is not as easy read. It is very dense and I feel that Lina's story ( which I was very interested in) becomes lost as the novel progresses. It is not light reading, quite unrelentingly dark, so I read it in chunks with rests in between. It is a very bold undertaking and I really admire it's scope and vision.

I am totally awestruck by the depth and scope of this work. The reader is thrown into a world of storytelling:- a Sophie’s World of philosophy and poets spanning the centuries and continents. A father and daughter are in a transit situation, where people try to board ships to move on or get back to their destination. Many people come and many go, but the two remain, perhaps unable to take the next step onwards. They have brought with them three books, which get read over and over, and the stories are repeated for us, of people in a state of flux, their place in the world uncertain and unstable. These are lives well documented in reality, great thinkers whose experiences inform their work in philosophy and poetry, whilst they undergo troubling events. There were some beautiful and profound passages, and some of the best writing you could hope for. One of my favourites was in response to what’s a good life? The answer - “flying like and bird, and sleeping in a nest”

beautiful. Heady and intellectual, semi-bound by facts and biography yet wholly storied in the most magical of ways.

The Book of Records has as its central thread the story of Lina, a young girl who has been forced to emigrate from her homeland (seemingly part of China), and with her father has arrived at a mysterious enclave called 'the Sea', a shapeshifting and timeshifting fantasy of a refugee camp. In the process they have been separated from Lina's mother and brother, with their present whereabouts and status unknown. Among their minimal possessions are three volumes taken from The Great Voyagers encyclopedia series, which Lina obsessively reads and memorises.

As her father becomes ill, Lina befriends her neighbours in the enclave, whose names and stories blur with the subjects of her encyclopaedia volumes. Bento is the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, excommunicated for his radical views on religion; Blucher is Hannah Arendt, fleeing Nazi persecution; and Jupiter is the Chinese Tang-dynasty poet Du Fu. While the book is anchored in the future ('the Sea' section appears based on fragments of evidence to be around a century from now, though given the fluidity of time in this books who knows really) its most extensive and powerful sections are those set in the past inhabited by these three historical figures, who are in a session the real protagonists of the novel.

Most powerful of all for me were the sections around Arendt. The book came to life in these sections, populated as they are with other well-known characters from the period, such as Walter Benjamin ('Benji'), and telling familiar tales of perpetual escape endured at the time and over the centuries by Jewish people. These sections provide both obvious relevance to a reader in the modern day world that is seemingly set up for a re-run this climate of nationalism and persecution, and gripping and compelling drama, regardless of your existing knowledge of the story.

The sections featuring Spinoza are also patchily excellent. He too has been forced out of homes and communities, both for his religion, and later for his rejection of the very concept of religion. Like the other historical figures featured, Thien has mentioned a desire to focus on the lesser-known aspects of their lives, so we also get in-depth detail on Spinoza's time working for pennies in a workshop making glass for spectacles and telescopes, which prove surprisingly fascinating in addition to their obvious metaphorical value around 'lenses'. We also find ourselves in 1666 and the time of the great Plague, which provides one of the more thought-provoking and moving moments of the book as a peer of Spinoza's explains the devastating impact of his work on a personal acquaintance of theirs who has lost family to the disease - in trusting Spinoza's intellect and therefore his rejection of religion, the bereaved man has lost his only source of consolation.

The Du Fu sections for me were the hardest to get a grip on. The central focus here is more on Du Fu's own frustrations as an unrecognised poet. In common with the other sections, though, is the impact of wider historical events on Du's own life and work. Like the others he is forced to move multiple times, due to famine and war. Like the others, at times he has no means to support himself and must make sacrifices to survive. But overall I found this section harder to parse, perhaps because of my own slightly narrow worldview and relative lack of familiarity with the history of Chinese poetry or indeed China as a whole.

You'll note that I am speaking mainly about these sections to the exclusion of talking about the main thread of the book, dealing with Lina and the Sea. 'Lina and the Sea' was apparently the working title of this book, and I'm actually not overly shocked that it was changed. To me, Lina's story, while well set-up in terms of intrigue, becomes less compelling as the book goes on, and my interest in her world diminished. I found her sections ended up feeling more like a hook on which to hang the stories of these historical figures, rather than a genuinely engaging story of its own.
That's not to say her story recedes entirely. We learn more about her history and the deep loss felt especially by the separation from her brother. We also see her in the further future, returned from the Sea and living a more humble and familiar-seeming life. And there's a whole long section in the middle dedicated to her father's past and the events that seemingly contributed to their exile. Her father worked in 'Cyberspace', something that's repeated quite a lot with a deep sense of mystery and meaning hanging over it, but I found the explanation (if that's what it was) of the relevance of all of this drifted over me somewhat.

In general, I found flickers of understanding in the way this novel was structured, rather than feeling like I entirely grasped Thien's purpose. It's evident that we're beginning by looking at a kind of dystopic future in which today's biggest issues (climate, nationalism, polarisation, etc.) have been amplified to a point in which new ways of dealing with those issues have to be invented, and some of the old ways of going about life erased. And the 'Great Voyagers' stories and their merging and blending with the modern world of the book are there as deliberate pointers towards how, despite the seemingly apocalyptic circumstances in which the Sea exists, many of the contributing factors to the present situation are not exceptional. Great thought, throughout history, has been born of seemingly impossible circumstances, and those who have pushed boundaries in philosophy and art are often those who have been persecuted and driven from their homes, forced to fight for the survival of their ideas.

These are big, timely and important ideas. I didn't always feel as if I was keeping up with Thien and her evidently enormous intellect in her deployment of these themes in this book, but I found their exploration through the lives of the historical figures consistently fascinating. I just wish that the main thread featuring Lina had kept to its initial promise and managed to hold its own in the face of those great stories that began as punctuation but ended as the dominant text. Perhaps that's part of the point, though: in highlighting the smallness of our lives under the weight of all that history, and the similarly bleak fact of the unexceptional nature of even the darkest events in our present day.

A really dense and intellectually rich novel, with some standout sections and ideas. But also one that didn’t feel wholly coherent on first pass, and in its depth and relentless darkness, was not always the easiest of reads. (7.5/10)