Product Description

A dazzling novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate love affair endures across a sea of time and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap, and it is Audrey Niffenegger's cinematic storytelling that makes the novel's unconventional chronology so vibrantly triumphant.

An enchanting debut and a spellbinding tale of fate and belief in the bonds of love, The Time Traveler's Wife is destined to captivate readers for years to come.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #340 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

From Publishers Weekly
This clever and inventive tale works on three levels: as an intriguing science fiction concept, a realistic character study and a touching love story. Henry De Tamble is a Chicago librarian with "Chrono Displacement" disorder; at random times, he suddenly disappears without warning and finds himself in the past or future, usually at a time or place of importance in his life. This leads to some wonderful paradoxes. From his point of view, he first met his wife, Clare, when he was 28 and she was 20. She ran up to him exclaiming that she'd known him all her life. He, however, had never seen her before. But when he reaches his 40s, already married to Clare, he suddenly finds himself time travelling to Clare's childhood and meeting her as a 6-year-old. The book alternates between Henry and Clare's points of view, and so does the narration. Reed ably expresses the longing of the one always left behind, the frustrations of their unusual lifestyle, and above all, her overriding love for Henry. Likewise, Burns evokes the fear of a man who never knows where or when he'll turn up, and his gratitude at having Clare, whose love is his anchor. The expressive, evocative performances of both actors convey the protagonists' intense relationship, their personal quirks and their reminiscences, making this a fascinating audio.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
On the surface, Henry and Clare Detamble are a normal couple living in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood. Henry works at the Newberry Library and Clare creates abstract paper art, but the cruel reality is that Henry is a prisoner of time. It sweeps him back and forth at its leisure, from the present to the past, with no regard for where he is or what he is doing. It drops him naked and vulnerable into another decade, wearing an age-appropriate face. In fact, it's not unusual for Henry to run into the other Henry and help him out of a jam. Sound unusual? Imagine Clare Detamble's astonishment at seeing Henry dropped stark naked into her parents' meadow when she was only six. Though, of course, until she came of age, Henry was always the perfect gentleman and gave young Clare nothing but his friendship as he dropped in and out of her life. It's no wonder that the film rights to this hip and urban love story have been acquired. Elsa Gaztambide
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"A powerfully original love story." -- People

"Tremendous grace and imagination . . . A love story without softness or flinchiing." -- The Washington Post Book World

"[A] time-travel love story par excellence. . . . [A] soaring celebration of thhe victory of love over time." -- Chicago Tribune

Spirited . . . Niffenegger plays ingeniously in her temporal hall of mirrors." -- The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Surprisingly one of my new favorite books!
I had no idea this book was going to grab me the way it did. It was there waiting and waiting for me to pick it up and when I finally did ~ I could not put it down! I am not usually a sappy romantic but this had so much other elements such as the time traveling that it was fun and intense along with seeing the love between the characters. So much so that you went along for the ride when Henry would leave and you felt the pain left when he would leave by Clare. It did not end the way I thought it was going to many times I was shocked by what happened next. I would and have recommended this book to every and anyone who enjoys a good love story with some very detailed twists. This book was drenched with emotion and leaves you wanting more...very good read!

Very moving book
This is a beautiful and heartbreaking book. I was hooked by the first page and completely absorbed by the second. It was such a fantastic and interesting premise, and I found myself wishing I had had a time traveler in my life while I was growing up (much like I wished we all had daemons when I read Philip Pullman's Golden Compass series). I wanted to savor every word, and I was pleased that it was such a long book--until I got about half-way through. About 1/3 of the last two hundred pages could have been cut, and it would have been better for it.

Incredible!
Having re-read this book after initially reading it about 3 years ago, I was just as enamored with this story as I was the first time. Henry and Clare's story is so mesmerizing both as a love story and as an original science-fiction concept. I cannot emphasize enough how captivating Henry's adventures through time are, and his relationship with Clare as both a young girl and as his wife is both poetic and realistic. This is a book I've recommended to many people over the past few years and I maintain the same enthusiasm (if not more) for this story the second time around.