Journey to the Center of the Earth

Set in motion by a coded message, Jules Verne's science fiction novel follows Otto Lidenbrock, an eccentric geology professor in Hamburg. Inside an old runic manuscript of an Icelandic saga, he and his nephew Axel find a note from Arne Saknussemm, an Icelandic alchemist of the 16th century, who says he reached the center of the earth by way of the crater of the volcano Snæfellsjökull. Lidenbrock sets off for Iceland at once with the reluctant Axel, hires a local guide named Hans and leads the party down into the volcano, where many dangers await. The novel influenced later writers, among them Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs and J. R. R. Tolkien.

Taraba Virtuala founder Roxana Bitoleanu said that if she could choose only one non-business book it would be this one, which she reads as a symbolic trip into the unknown, like a personal search for meaning.