This is a re-read - probably my fourth or fifth time. I brought it along as my one fiction read for the airplane, and chose it because in it the main character, Kivrin, goes back in time as an historian to study 1320s England, but when she arrives finds that she can't understand anyone - the archaic English sounds completely different from what she anticipated (appropriate as we head off to live in France for four months). Then she finds out she's not in 1320 - she's in 1348 and the plague is killing everyone. It's a pretty dark tragedy in the end, and yet it is a beautiful story.
Connie Willis' novels are quite possibly the most rewarding to re-read of any author. There are certain plot mechanisms, such as loss and miscommunication, that show up in her stories over and over - seeing them re-used and repeated in different ways becomes a very layered reading experience. I just discovered that her recent novel "Blackout" is available as a e-book download from the Toronto Public Library, so I'll be re-reading that for the first time soon.
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