The first read of 2010 returns by chance to a classic of science fiction.

A Swiftly Tilting Planet
by Madeleine L’Engle

All the elements of fantacy and fiction are woven together in this follow-on to A Wrinkle in Time. Meg Murry O’Keefe and her family are just sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner when her father gets a phone call from the White House about a madman’s threat of nuclear war. Only an old Irish rune seems to hold a clue to averting worldwide disaster, and when Meg’s brother Charles Wallace, now fifteen, recites it, a radiant white beast–the unicorn Gaudior–appears to join him on his quest. But there are only twenty-four hours in which to stop tragedy from occurring. Can Charles Wallace, with the help of Gaudior and Meg, possibly succeed? Yes, of course, with the constraints of time lifted, one night for Charles in Earth time becomes lifetimes of tracing the might-have-bens to the one that prevented the world’s distruction.