The Midnight Library by Matt Haigh

 

Our Rating 4⭐s

You Can Buy "The Midnight Library"...here

304 pages

First Published 2020

You Can Find Out More About Matt Haigh...here

• The Blurb...

Nora's life has been going from bad to worse. Then at the stroke of midnight on her last day on earth she finds herself transported to a library. There she is given the chance to undo her regrets and try out each of the other lives she might have lived. Which raises the ultimate question: with infinite choices, what is the best way to live?

• Our Review...

This book was recommended to me by someone who, in a short space of time, has become a well liked and respected friend.

Well what a lovely and thought provoking ride this turned out to be. Sort of a mirror image of "It's a Wonderful Life," in which George Bailey in the holding pen between life and death gets to see what the world would be like if he never existed. In our case Nora Seed  gets the opposite. She gets to try on numerous lives. Nora thinks the life she is in, her root life is a bit, well...shitty. One of the various books containing her other lives must be perfect so she sets out reading each one in the hope of finding a personal nirvana. Crossroads, sliding doors and the butterfly effect run through this book like a stick of rock. Wow I've used far too many metaphors in that last sentence.😕

Spoiler Alert Of course long before the end of her stay in purgatory we realise that Nora will choose her root life because, as we all know it's not the life we choose or strive for that is important, it is the way we deal with our current lives. 

As Robert M Pirsig author of The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance puts it "The only zen at the top of a mountain is the zen you bring with you."

 Or as i recently saw a quote by Ryan Jones, former Wales rugby captain now suffering early onset dementia,  "the good old days are now" 

Or as Seneca put it "make haste to live and think of each day as a single life."

You only get one shot at life so give everything, give it 100%. and if you don't like the view, change your frame of vision. 

And there in a nutshell is the beauty of this book... it makes you think about your life. I love novels that do that. 

• Selected Quotes...

“We don't have to play every game to know what winning feels like… Love and laughter and fear and pain are universal currencies. We just have to close our eyes and savour the taste of the drink in front of us and listen to the song as it plays”

“If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you”

“Never underestimate the big importance of small things”

“And that sadness is intrinsically part of the fabric of happiness. You can’t have one without the other. Of course, they come in different degrees and quantities. But there is no life where you can be in a state of sheer happiness for ever. And imagining there is just breeds more unhappiness in the life you’re in.”

• If You Liked This Then You May Like...

The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Anxious People by Frederik Bachman