Readers Place

About the Book

Louisa is an imaginative and curious chambermaid who, while cleaning rooms at the New Yorker Hotel, stumbles across a man living permanently in room 3327, which he has transformed into a scientific laboratory. Brought together by a shared interest in the pigeons that nest in the hotel, Louisa discovers that the mysterious guest is Nikola Tesla, one of the most brilliant and most neglected inventors of the twentieth century. The Invention of Everything Else charts the relationship of the girl and the genius during the last week of Tesla s life, when sinister forces are closing in on him. However, as well as being an engaging literary mystery, this exceptional novel movingly tells the life story of this extraordinary man and also recounts the heartbreak and redemption of one ordinary family..

Starting Points for Discussion

• The front cover of the paperback carries a quote from Dave Eggars who calls the work ‘Completely original, one of the most distinctive and unforgettable voices I’ve read in years’. Do you agree with his view? What do you think he finds in the work that is so original? Does the book remind you of any other novels you have read recently?

• ‘I guess I‘m not a very future looking person’ Samantha Hunt, New York Times. The novel is set in the early years of the twentieth century. How does the optimism of that era infuse the characters and the plot? Think about Louisa, her father and Arthur in particular?

• Explore the relationship between the two central characters in the novel, Louisa and Tesla. Do you believe in their unlikely friendship, what draws the two together? In what ways are they mirror images of each other?

• Pigeons feature heavily in the novel. What did you make of their starring role? Why are they so central to the plot? How do they add to the atmosphere of the novel?

• For a book suffused with a belief that anything is possible, the prevailing mood of the novel is peculiarly melancholy. Do you agree?

• This sprawling and complex novel has many themes, yet love and time remain the central motives.
  Look at the way that the notion of time passing is dealt with in the novel.

• In a novel where everything is in flux, one character stays pratically immobile in his room. Discuss the character of Tesla.

• This novel has been called ‘a love letter to New York’ how does Samantha Hunt depict the city? How integral is the place to the plot of the novel?

• The novel deftly blends fact with fiction, realism with fantasy. Did you find this novel challenging or enjoyable or both? Did you feel it formed a coherent whole despite it’s many facets?

• Why do you think Samantha Hunt called her novel The Invention of Everything Else?

Other Books by Samantha Hunt

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  The Invention of Everything…

  Louisa is an imaginative and curious chambermaid who, while cleaning rooms at…

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Suggested Further Reading

• The Time Traveler’s Wife ~ Audrey Niffenegger
• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle ~ Haruki Murakami
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland ~ Lewis Carroll
• Frankenstein ~ Mary Shelley