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Very well-written, entertaining and thought-provoking. I really enjoyed the focus on Tom, a scholar about 100 years in the dystopian future, who is researching a lost poem and also trying to teach uninterested students about our world. His appreciation of the past (our present) is fun to experience, and it provides a great perspective. For example: "I prefer teaching the post-2015 period, when social media were beginning to be drawn into the currency of private lives, when waves of fantastical or malevolent or silly rumours began to shape the nature not only of politics but of human understanding. Fascinating!"

And I loved a lot of the writing. There's a description of Tom trying to access a container and get it open, using not quite the right tools, and it reminded me of so many home projects I've done over the years. The effort, anticipation and frustration are captured perfectly.

The first part was funnier and more thrilling than the second part, but still it was great overall. And as for the title, what we can know is ... hard to say. Even things that people write in their journals may be false or misleading. And when the record isn't clear, Tom struggles with how to proceed: "Surely it was permissible to make educated guesses about the subjective states and lines of thought of people who had died a hundred years ago. Perhaps it was not."

A complete joy to read, and surprisingly fast too. Smith's exhilarating writing, with lots of wordplay, artistic observations, and literary references, keeps my brain on its toes. The Brexit pall hanging over the story hits hard right now, with the anti-immigrant crackdown happening in the U.S. I'm very much looking forward to continuing with the rest of the quartet. Great audiobook narration by Melody Grove.

Very good historical fiction. Interesting to have it revolve around a real event - the 1984 bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Tory conference - but then have it focus less on the event itself and more on the pre-event thoughts and activities of three characters: Dan (a member of the IRA), Moose (disappointed but hopeful deputy general manager at the hotel), and Freya (Moose's teenage daughter). Well-written, insightful, and often funny.