The desire to tamper with time is inherently human. Wouldn’t you go back to high school to catch yourself before you did that horrifically embarrassing thing that still haunts you when you’re falling asleep? Wouldn’t you try to buy Cleopatra a drink, or challenge Lincoln to an arm-wrestling match, just for kicks? Don’t you wonder about Groundhog Day’s practice-made-perfect life?

Today’s horoscope: Best not look too close at the reality of time—it’ll only age you. Try fiction. The chapters of a fantasy series aren’t clogged by hours of purging email inboxes or meal prepping. No one will force you to read about watching grass grow, unless you pick up a pastoral novel. Go for a five-star day and forget when Daylight Savings is or if you even remembered to set your kitchen clock from the last time change. Why worry? It’s a Leap Year—you have more time to get things done than you did the last three years. No rush.

Lots of recommendations for escape in the Libby app are here for you. These books are your trial run before you go looking for scrap metal to build a time machine. In honor of Leap Day, enjoy the quirkiness of clocks and calendars with these time travel titles.

WHAT IF?

11/22/63 by Stephen King

What if you could go back in time to change one of the biggest events in modern history?

Replay by Ken Grimwood

What if you could live your life over again, knowing the mistakes you’d made before?

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

While we all wonder what our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself?

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

What if two people who loved each other deeply married and faced a life in which one person remained constant while the other slipped fluidly in and out of time?

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

What if you could live again and again, until you got it right?

The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn

What if you could meet, befriend and steal from Jane Austen herself?

The First Bright Thing by J. R. Dawson

If you knew how dark tomorrow would be, what would you do with today?

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

If you could go back in time, who would you want to meet?

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

What if you could watch the coming-of-age of five characters spanning eight centuries?

THRILLERS

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Jason’s life is not the one he knows.

Recursion by Blake Crouch

A relentless thriller about time, identity and memory.

Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

Can you stop a murder after it’s already happened?

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

Check out this thriller with “an astonishing time-turning twist!”

Timeline by Michael Crichton

Modern-day grad students go back to 14th-century France to investigate a mystery.

A Rip Through Time series by Kelley Armstrong

A modern-day homicide detective finds herself in Victorian Scotland with a killer on the loose.

FANTASY/SCI-FI

Night Watch by Terry Pratchett

Book 29 in the Discworld series where past, present and future collide.

Mother of Learning series by Domagoj Kurmaic

Zorian, a teenage mage, finds himself trapped in a time loop in a world of magic.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

Harry August always returns to where he began—a child with all the knowledge of a life he’s already lived a dozen times before.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

A son searches for his father through quantum space-time.

Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore

Each passing year, Oona will leap to another age at random.

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Two time-traveling rivals fall in love and must change the past to ensure their future.

Time Enough for Love by Robert A Heinlein

The story of a man so in love with Life that he refused to stop living it, and so in love with Time that he became his own ancestor.

JUVENILE & YOUNG ADULT

You Only Live Once, David Bravo by Mark Oshiro

A choice in David’s past put him on the wrong timeline.

Boomi’s Boombox by Shanthi Sekaran

A young girl accidentally travels back in time to meet her dad as a child.

Vivian Lantz’s Second Chances by Kathryn Ormsbee

Vivian is stuck reliving the first day of school over and over.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Sixth-grader Miranda is receiving mysterious notes that give her a secret mission.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

This Newbury Award winner and classic children’s series is a must-read.

The Retake by Jen Calonita

A time traveling app shows how friends drifted apart.

A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley

An adventure set between modern and Elizabethan England.

*Title availability may vary by region.

Enjoy your “extra” day and kick back with one of these reads on the Libby app.

RELATED READ: The most popular fantasy books of all time in the Libby app