Time travel stories Archives

The Time Machine

by H.G. Wells

From the publisher: "Travel with the Time Traveler as he races in his Time Machine through thousands of years to get to the future! There he discovers a strange society in which nothing is what it seems. Beautiful little people play and laugh among wonderful flowers and palaces above ground. But the Earth covers some frightening surprises, much to the Time Traveler's horror."

The Jane Austen Project

by Kathleen A. Flynn

Surprise, surprise, what do we have here? A Jane Austen time travel novel that's actually good! At some unspecified point in the future, the earth's atmosphere has been destroyed, food can no longer be grown, and wormholes to the past are in constant use. So when Rachel is asked to go back in time and retrieve the finished (yes, really!) manuscript of The Watsons, she jumps at the chance. But things do not go as planned... Gentle readers, this does not read like an Austen novel, and Janeite purists will need their smelling salts. But if you love Jane Austen AND Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, give this one a try. A paperback original. Publication date: May 2.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold

by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Although it takes place in the summertime, this charming Japanese novel in translation makes for a charming, cozy winter listening experience. At a small Tokyo café, patrons sip coffee and travel through time. Yes, this is a time travel book—but not your typical action-packed science fiction. Heartwarming and quirky, the story follows four customers who enter the café in search of time travel. The most important rule they learn: your trip through time only lasts as long as your coffee stays warm. A quick listen, under 7 hours with delightful narration by Arina Ii.

The Kingdoms

by Natasha Pulley

A mind-bending mystery, alternate history, and queer romance rolled into one. In the new time-slip novel from The Bedlam Stacks author, Napoleon conquers England in the Battle of Trafalgar and a stone portal in the sea serves as a passageway between centuries. When Joe steps off a train in the city of Londre, 1898, he has a postcard in his pocket written in forbidden English, with a postmark dated 1805 though it inexplicably bears the image of a recently-constructed lighthouse. “Dearest Joe, come home if you remember,” says the postcard, signed simply “M.” Joe’s search for M leads him to the Outer Hebrides and back and forth through the stone portals many a time on his dangerous quest to reunite with his family without changing the course of history—or erasing his own existence.

An Ocean of Minutes

by Thea Lim

A pandemic novel that’s also a time travel novel. Polly will do whatever it takes to save her boyfriend Frank when he catches a deadly flu virus. Enter the company TimeRaiser: agree to be their bonded laborer and they’ll send you into the future and pay for your loved one to get life-saving treatment. Polly and Frank agree to meet again in twelve years, only she gets rerouted an extra five years in a country she no longer recognizes. Not only that, she can’t find Frank anywhere. Is he still alive? She must figure out a way forward in this new life and see whether it will bring her back to her old love.

Sea of Tranquility

by Emily St. John Mandel

Emily St. John Mandel weaves a tapestry of stories like no other. In her latest novel, she picks up three main threads: an exiled eighteen year old who hears an unusual sound while trekking the Canadian forest, an author whose book tour takes her to the moon, and a detective whose investigation will tie these tales together. We follow these characters from 1912 to 2401 in a unique story of space, time, art, and a pandemic. I was just as struck by the structure of Mandel’s work as I was by the character development—her books, while quiet and character-centered—are surprisingly propulsive. I enjoyed this mind-bending and utterly unique novel on the physical page, but if you adore multiple narrators, try the audiobook for a fully immersive experience.

This Time Tomorrow

by Emma Straub

When Emily Henry came on What Should I Read Next, she raved about this book, describing it as a poignant, time-travel(!!) tale of a father-daughter relationship. I picked it up that night and finished it the very next day. Alice is 40, living on the Upper West Side, and not unhappy, except for the fact that her beloved father is dying. After a disastrous birthday dinner, she falls asleep drunk at 3am and when she wakes up, she's 16 again. Her father made his fortune writing a blockbuster time travel novel, so she KNOWS she shouldn't try to alter the future—but she can't resist trying to engineer an outcome that gives her father a longer life. I loved it.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

by Claire North

I had so much fun talking about all things books and reading with Andrew and Craig of the Overdue podcast on What Should I Read Next. When Andrew mentioned his appreciation for time travel novels and cited this as a favorite, I took note. Harry August has nearly died eleven times. With his last breaths, Harry always returns to the beginning of his life story, destined to relive his life again and again and again. Harry isn’t the only person who lives this way, but he is one of the only people who remembers every life he re-lives. Now, at the end of his eleventh life just before he goes back in time, a young girl appears at his bedside with a message. The book follows Harry as his next steps threaten to alter the course of history.

Kindred

by Octavia Butler

I waited far too long to read Kindred by Octavia Butler, and I was riveted from the first page. Time travel meets slave narrative in this modern science fiction classic. When Dana, a modern Black woman from 1976, gets transported to the antebellum south in order to save one of her white ancestors, she preserves her own history. But it doesn’t end there. As she keeps getting pulled back to the past, her trips grow more and more dangerous, and Dana must figure out how to survive in a reality far more terrifying than the history books ever suggested. If you still need a push to read Kindred, listen to Volume II Episode III of One Great Book.

The House on the Strand

by Daphne du Maurier

Did you know Daphne Du Maurier wrote a time travel novel? Her 1969 novel, while lesser known, progressively explores mind-altering substances as a mode of time travel. The book opens in the middle of Dick Young’s trip to 14th century Cornwall, described in vivid, atmospheric detail. Dick’s friend Professor Magnus Lane loaned him a house, so long as Dick helps the professor with his scientific experiments. After taking the professor’s new drug, Dick finds himself tripping all the way back to medieval times. Time travel proves intoxicating for Dick, who increasingly loathes the modern world—but is he really traveling back in time, or is he imagining his trips due to the drug’s effects? Du Maurier crafts a story that begs us to question the very nature of reality.

The Rose Garden

by Susanna Kearsley

From Booklist: "Kearsley makes the impossible seem real as she weaves a tale full of genuine characters and a strong sense of place and makes history come alive." This historical time travel/ historical romance has served as a gateway to the genre for many a reader. Eva heads to Cornwall after the death of her sister, looking for comfort in the home where they spent their childhood summers. Once there, she realizes the house is a portal to the 18th century and she can talk to the house’s inhabitants from back then. Not only that, she starts falling for Daniel but being with him requires staying in the past. A lovely exploration of grief and the ways we figure out where (and when) we truly belong.

Doomsday Book

by Connie Willis

I’d never heard of Connie Willis and her time travel series until Keren Form (self-professed mega-nerd) joined me to talk fantasy for all readers on What Should I Read Next. The first book opens on Kivrin, an Oxford University student and the first woman to travel back to the Middle Ages. Her instructors are part of a group of historians who use time travel for the sole purpose of historical preservation and study. Unfortunately, when Kivrin arrives in the past, she contracts a virus that leaves her delirious for weeks, relying on a medieval family to nurse her back to health. At the same time, her advisor is struck down by a virus, making the whole situation ever more precarious. Within this time travel story is a page-turning mystery, witty humor, and a deeply human story about how we care for others over the course of history. Keren also professed love for the next installment, which takes the characters to Victorian England.

The Time Traveler’s Wife

by Audrey Niffenegger

In Audrey Niffenegger's cinematic debut, an art student falls in love with a librarian. So far, so good. But they met when Clare was six and Henry was 36, and they married when Clare was 23 and Henry 31. Henry travels through time, forward and back, unwillingly, unpredictably. In her love story Niffenegger explores what this jarring disruption does to a man, to a marriage, to a family.

Time travel stories