Cloud Atlas Reading Order

Cloud Atlas (2004) by David Mitchell is a novel in six nested stories spanning five centuries — from a nineteenth-century Pacific voyage journal to a distant post-apocalyptic future and back again — each story interrupted at its midpoint before the sequence reverses and each narrative is concluded. A nineteenth-century American notary crosses the Pacific; a young composer in 1930s Belgium becomes the amanuensis of a dying musician; a journalist in 1970s California investigates a nuclear power conspiracy; a vanity publisher in contemporary London becomes a prisoner in a nursing home; a fabricant clone in a near-future Korea is interviewed about her awakening; a goatherd in a far-future Hawaii speaks of the old world. The novel asks whether human compassion and creativity might persist across time and circumstance even as civilizations rise and fall. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2004 and adapted by the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer into a film in 2012.