On the Calculation of Volume is a popular book series by Solvej Balle, a Danish fiction writer. Six of the seven titles in the series have been published in the original language; four have appeared in English, a fifth soon to arrive this November.
For those who do not plan to read the books, please see below for a full synopsis. This information is unavailable anywhere else.
Book I: Tara Selter, an antiquarian book dealer, gets mysteriously trapped inside the eighteenth of November (it’s always spelled out like that) for an entire year. She relives this day 366 times and remains, inexplicably, entirely sane.
Book II: Tara escapes the time warp of the eighteenth of November by swallowing a sestersius right before she falls asleep on day 366. Success! However, now she has had a weird experience that no one else can identify with. Luckily, just as in Book I, this doesn’t bother her very much. She continues to live an upper-middle-class life unencumbered by computers, cell phones, politics, war, finances, or other people.
Book III: Same as Book II but all the mentions of tea and various European linens have been expunged. This a new time warp, one that only the reader is meant to experience.
Book IV: Remembering the most interesting thing that she did in Book I (purchase a telescope), Tara decides to become an astronomer. This is simply too much for her husband, Thomas, who so far has been extremely understanding, having accepted her explanations of a rift in time without question on at least sixty-one eighteenths of November. But going back to school, at Tara’s age? It’s embarrassing. Divorce court gives Thomas the house, which is only fair; it’s been in his family for generations. Tara moves to Leuven. As she packs up her childhood belongings, we finally learn where she was born: Hampton Springs, Florida.
Book V: At astronomy school, Tara meets a much older man, Gustav, who has ALSO experienced the same day for a whole year (for him it was the twelfth of February). They begin a torrid affair. Tara dip-dyes her hair green.
Book VI: One evening, Tara and Gustav are passionately kissing under the old clock tower on campus. The clock strikes twelve; its hands begin to spin out of sync, faster and faster, until the whole world whirls underneath Tara’s and Gustav’s feet. They melt into the surface of the earth. The rest of the book is their lucid observations on being liquid versions of themselves, slowly percolating through the crust and mantle of the planet.
Book VII: Once they reach the earth’s molten core, Tara and Gustav’s liquid selves are shot out into space. As they hurtle back into the atmosphere, they reconstitute, but in each other’s bodies. Finally they land, gently, on a beach. It is January 1, 0 C.E., Kingston, Jamaica. They live that same day for the rest of their lives. Since they’re doing it together, it’s great; no further conflict arises. On their 5,786th first of January they are killed by a small meteor. The book ends after a brief soliloquy by the meteor on the incomprehensibility of time and the power of love.
Tunnel of dust 