The Book of Records
Madeleine Thien, author of the Booker-shortlisted Do Not Say We Have Nothing, returns with a novel about a young girl named Lina and her dying father, who take shelter in a mysterious structure called the Sea, a place where eras blur together. There Lina meets three travelers drawn from history, including the philosopher Baruch Spinoza and the poet Du Fu, who tell her their stories of exile and survival. Thien weaves their lives into a meditation on migration, memory, and what we carry across borders and centuries.
What you might want to know about The Book of Records
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A girl and her ailing father wash up in a strange seaside building where time bends, and three figures from history step out of old books to keep her company.
Yes. Madeleine Thien also wrote Do Not Say We Have Nothing, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won Canada's Scotiabank Giller Prize.
The Book of Records was written by Madeleine Thien, published in 2025 by W. W. Norton & Company.
The Book of Records is 368 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Book of Records takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
The Book of Records is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
