I'd like to recommend "Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell to fellow bibliophiles.
The book is very unusual in structure - it follows six lives which interlock. It opens with extracts from a diary written by a 19th Century attorney travelling on a sailing ship from Australia to America, and then breaks off mid story, indeed midsentence to cut to the next section, written in a completely different style, taking the form of a series of letters written in the 1930's. As the reader becomes engrossed in the second story, the narrator almost casually refers to a diary which he has been reading written by a 19th Century attorney travelling on a sailing ship etc etc....
This second story is interupted by a third, itself interupted by a fourth and so on. The final story is set way into the future, and each story references those before it.
Each new section is written in a very different style - it genuinely feels like you have picked up another book. However, the book as a whole is immensely satisfying and achieves great unity, not least due to the common themes that run through the very different tales focusing on humanity's "will to power" and where that could lead us.
I'd be interested to hear what anyone else who read it thought of it. I think its one of the best and most original works that I've read in a while.
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