I have a bit of a fascination with Arctic exploration, and have read my fair share of historical fiction and nonfiction on the subject. Of course I’d seen The Ministry of Time all over the place the last couple of years, but being a bit of a literary misanthrope, I’d avoided picking it up, that was until I discovered last fall that it incorporated the last voyage of Erebus and The Terror, and specifically, one of the officers of that expedition, Graham Gore. Factor in some time travel and I couldn’t order the book fast enough. Anticipating that I’d enjoy it, I bought the limited edition from Blackwell’s, which in addition to lovely endpapers and such, avoids the hated celebrity book stamp of the US edition. Anyway, I loved the book and its characters, especially Graham, Arthur, and Maggie, and didn’t want to leave them behind, so I tried to read it slowly instead of breezing through it, which I could easily have done. It’s clever and funny, but also poignant, with an unreliable, unnamed narrator who breaks the fourth wall, and enough tension (of various kinds) to keep the reader on tenterhooks. And I’ll never be able to read about Lieutenant Gore in quite the same way. (Side note: The Terror by Dan Simmons was one of my favorite books of 2011, and I loved that Kaliane Bradley mentions in her afterword that the series adaptation – which I’ve not seen – was one of the inspirations for her novel).