About Time: Twelve Stories

Jack Finney is one of the great writers of time travel stories. His stories were used often on "Twilight Zone" (the original)series. His style of writing is very easy to read but has so much depth and life to them. One story in the book is about some unusual citizens who have "modern" inventions that baffle their new neighbors. A lot of the stories have characters that hunger for more "nostalgic" times and remain wistful in nature. I highly recommend this book.

When I was very young, I read in a high school textbook the story "The Third Level," about a man who discovers a floor of Grand Central Station that leads to the 1800's. He comes home to get his family and buy money from the era, but he soon finds he can't find the level again although he spends his free time trying. It has been my favorite story since, and it is supported here by eleven other tales of equal quality. Finney handles the subject of time travel with tenderness and whimsy, and pulls it off every time. "The Woodrow Wilson Dime" (later expanded into a novel) is another favorite, about a man who finds a strange dime when he buys a newspaper and comes home to find a different wife, who he falls in love with. When he tires of his lifestyle, he finds a Roosevelt dime and goes back to his other wife. The story proposes the question of whether or not you are cheating on your spouse if your spouse doesn't exist in that reality. The story about the strange new neighbor who posseses a newspaper from the future is a tongue-in-cheek classic, and the one about the antique car is not to be missed. If you liked his novels "Time and Again" and "From Time to Time," you'll love this one. Also recommended are "The Mirror" by Marlys Millhiser and "Lightning" by Dean Koontz.

Jack Finney, writing in the late 1950s and early 1960s, was hardly the first writer who explored time travel; after all, H.G. Wells wrote "The Time Machine" more than half a century earlier, and that classic was already being turned into a movie as Finney was writing his short stories. But Finney defined the time-travel story as no other writer has. When you read these stories, they will seem familiar to you--perhaps because you have read them before, as many of them have appeared in other anthologies; but perhaps because so many other writers have imitated Finney, all without surpassing him.Here you will find "The Third Level," about a mysterious platform in Grand Central Station that leads into another world (a precursor of "Level Nine and Three-quarters" in the "Harry Potter" books). And "Of Missing Persons," the classic tale of lost faith and missed opportunities. And "The Coin Collector," about alternate realities, where "a Woodrow Wilson dime" reveals that "every once in a while something from one of these worlds . . . will stray into another one."Jack Finney wasn't the first, but he was the best. His stories weave together O. Henry's story-telling talent (and surprise-twist endings), Rod Serling's imagination, and Ray Bradbury's skill at juxtaposing the familiar with the slightly terrifying. This book's stories are a treat.

This is a marvelous little book, full of delightful stories playing (mostly) on the time theme. Each story is very interesting and often with the twists of an Alfred Hitchcock story. We picked this up for a plane trip and it was perfect - except for fighting over it!!!

I have read this book twice - so far. Some truly charming stories that, as was the case in the novel "Time and Again", encourage one to see the past with new eyes. I can honestly say that my perception of the past (and, consequently, the present) has been enriched by these stories. I especially loved the stories of the house that received a second chance, and of the car vintage car that gives its riders a second chance. I have recommended this book to many of my friends.