SOLVED. 5 (?) part fiction novel about the symbol spiral that can be read in any order and spreads over several centuries. [s]

[Lina]

I read this book around 2016/17, it had a red cover (I know l, not helpful at all). The amazing thing about it was that it consisted of 5 seemingly unconnected stories that take place in different eras (stone age to modern age) and places and every story had its own protagonist and plot. What connected them all was the symbolism of a spiral whichs true importance you only realize once you read all the stories. The stories could be read in any possible order, so for example you could start with the last story and end up with the third. One story was about a witch trial and execution, another about a clan rivalry between cave people, one about a home for mad people where the protagonist went crazy when he had to go to the upper levels of the institution because the only way up was over a spiral staircase. It would be amazing if someone new the name or author because it was such a good book and 8 would love to read it again, possibly in a different order then the first time :)

[Christine]

I’m sorry I don’t know the series... but I’m following because it sounds great & I’d love to read it also!

[[deleted user]]

The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick

"written in four cleverly interlinked parts and can be read in 24 different ways. Spanning thousands of years, The Ghosts of Heaven can tell us a secret as old as time, about survival, discovery, and the effect of the spiral - a symbol that has no end - on all our lives."

"Four linked stories boldly chronicle madness, obsession, and creation through the ages. Beginning with the cave-drawings of a young girl on the brink of creating the earliest form of writing, Sedgwick traverses history, plunging into the seventeenth century witch hunts and a 1920s insane asylum where a mad poet's obsession with spirals seems to be about to unhinge the world of the doctor trying to save him."

[Lina]

Thank you Lori, that's the one!