The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, winner of the 2013 Man Booker Prize and the 2013 Governor General’s Literary Awards, drew my attention because I usually enjoy historical fiction, and I have always been fascinated by the gold rush and how people would risk everything they have in the odd chance of striking it rich. The book starts when 12 men meet on 27 January 1866 in the smoking room of a hotel to…