The Time-Traveler's Reading List

I remember writing an essay in Secondary school about whether I'd want a short exciting life or a long boring one if I had the choice. Short and exciting was definitely enticing, but then I thought of all the short exciting lives I could enjoy vicariously during long boring years. As a reader and writer I could live and die over and over again in a million different worlds and cities and eras. What more could a teenager dream? And so I chose long and boring (though I have to admit, it's been...