Great Book #94: The Time Machine

Sometimes a book sits unread on your shelf and for the longest time you don't feel any desire to pick it up. Then finally something compels you to, you read it and literally love it to pieces (you should see my copy now), and then you could kick yourself for taking so long.That's how I feel about H.G. Wells--which might surprise you if you've read Mary Modern, because I can see how you'd think he's been an influence, but no, not until now. I knew he was a visionary--Paré tells me he even predicted the internet--but I never expected he could write such marvelous prose:

All the old constellations had gone from the sky, however: that slow movement which is imperceptible in a hundred human lifetimes, had long since rearranged them in unfamiliar groupings.  But the Milky Way, it seemed to me, was still the same tattered streamer of star dust as of yore. Southward (as I judged it) was a very bright red star that was new to me: it was even more splendid than our own green Sirius. And amid all these scintillating points of light one bright planet shone kindly and steadily like the face of an old friend.

This tattered old copy of The Time Machine also includes three short stories: "The Empire of the Ants," "The Man Who Could Work Miracles," and "The Country of the Blind" (Gutenberg link to story collection here)--the last of which is now one of my favorite short stories of all time. It is absolutely brilliant. Read it NOW.