The Bridge of San Luis Rey – Thornton Wilder

I picked this up at my library because it's on the Time top 100 novels list, I guess it's more famous in the USA than in the UK or Australia because I'd never heard of it before. I was delighted to find that, yes, it's a brilliant novel.

It is fascinating to read a novel which engages with the great themes in such a brief form (under 100 pages). If I were writing a book about the existence of God and the unknowable nature of fate and death I would be tempted to write something long, worthy and portentous. Instead, Wilder takes the death of 5 people in a bridge collapse as his starting point for asking why such things happen, and why these individuals rather than someone far more deserving of ill luck than these flawed, but very human, characters. The book packs in love stories, humour, pathos and tragedy, and it works on every level. Frankly, there's no good reason not to read it.