Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel #1) by Connie Willis

I read Doomsday Book by Connie Willis in 2013. At our last book club meeting, I was talking about it with a friend who is caught up on the Outlander series and was looking for another time travel series. Suddenly, everyone there thought it would be a great idea to read it for our January meeting and here we are. I think it's important to say that this book was published in 1992 because some of it is really prophetic (see especially the two lines of note I pulled out). 

Kirvin is a historian who has been given clearance to go back into time. But, while the team in a near-future London tries to make sure that they can get her at the rendezvous location, a crisis happens in London and Kirvin's ability to survive is in question. 

In general, I still really like this book. Maybe I don't LOVE it as much as 2013 NGS did, but I still think this is a solid read. I thought the beginning was a bit slow to get started and we focused a lot on other characters besides Kirvin for quite some time, so it was hard to warm up to Kirvin. My book club peeps mostly agreed with this - the beginning was a bit challenging, but once it got going, it was hard to stop reading. People who listened to the audiobook thought that it was actually a nice pace for an audiobook, so that's an interesting point. I read a hardcover version and it had teeny tiny print, so maybe that's another consideration.

We had such an interesting conversation about this book. One of the quieter members of the book club started things with a "I'd obviously go back in time if I had a choice and couldn't mess anything up." And boy was that a controversial statement! What about a lack of food, the threat of illness, no indoor plumbing or heat? WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOUR PERIOD STARTED? Super fun discussion.

4/5 stars

Things I looked up:

scrofula (page 5 for the first time) - A swelling of the lymph nodes in the neck caused by a bacterial infection. It can be treated with antibiotics and sometimes is surgically removed. It is usually caused by tuberculosis. 

Domesday Book (page 35 for the first time) - A manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror - the main purpose was to record the annual value of every piece of landed property to its lord, and the resources in land, labor force, and livestock from which the value came. The name "Domesday Book" came into use in the 12th century because its decisions were unalterable, like those in the Last Judgment, and its sentence could not be quashed. 

king's evil (page 109) - alternative name for scrofula (see above)

St. Vitus dance (page 109)  - also known as the dancing plague, was a social phenomenon that occurred primarily in mainland Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries, involving groups of people dancing erratically, sometimes thousands at a time (this seemed familiar to me as I was writing it up - there's a Sawbones podcast episode about it!)

prie-dieu (page 248) - a type of prayer desk primarily intended for private devotional use, but which may also be found in churches

Lines of note:

"Explain! Perhaps you'd like to explain it to me, too. I'm not used to having my civil liberties taken away like this. In America, nobody would dream of telling you where you can or can't go."

And over thirty million Americans died during the Pandemic as a results of that sort of thinking, he thought. (Page 58)

Can you imagine Willis writing about terrible America would be at handling a pandemic in 1992?! 

"I've posted notices asking that everyone conserve lavatory paper, but it's done no good at all. The Americans are particularly wasteful." (page 259)

SO PROPHETIC!!! 

Hat mentions (why hats?): 

She had taken off her coat and wool hat and set them on the only other chair...Her gray hair was in disarray, as if she had tried to fluff it up after taking her hat off. (page 3)

The outside door opened and a knot of people, all taking down umbrellas and shaking out hats, came in, were order-of-serviced by Colin, and went into the nave. (page 169)

"Put your hat on," he said, unfolding a blue paper crown. (page 210)

"....but that's old hat." (page 260)

"Where in God's name do you get these figures?" Dunworthy said. "Pull them out of a hat?" (page 263)