Piranesi

Piranesi lives in a House that contains the entire world — infinite halls, tidal statues, and a sky full of clouds. He keeps meticulous journals. He is not sure how long he has been there. There is one other person in the House, who he calls the Other. There are also sixteen dead people, whose bones he tends carefully.

This is one of the most purely pleasurable reading experiences I’ve had in years: strange, tender, and completely unlike anything else. Clarke spent sixteen years writing it after Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and it shows — not in the length (it’s short, almost a novella) but in the precision. Every sentence is exactly where it needs to be.