The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Published: 2020, Canongate Books

Genre: Fiction

Themes: Life, death, regrets

My rating(out of 5): ❤❤❤❤❤

I stopped reading this book at page 34.

No, no. Don't get me wrong. This is not a 'did not finish', I mean I had to just stop for a moment and contemplate the concept of a big Book of Regrets waiting to be read at the point when your body hovers on the cusp between life and death. Author Matt Haig dangles the possibility that you could go back and make things different; go back and live the life that might have been, if only you had made a different choice. That is what stopped me.

No wonder this book was a Sunday Times Number One Bestseller! What an idea! Not only can the lead character Nora go back and make another choice, if it turns out she didn't like that new life after all, then she can go back to the Midnight Library and pick another life and have another go. The choices available are endless and every option for every choice is written out in an infinite number of books. If she tries a life and decides she originally went with the right choice after all, then one of her regrets fades from her personal Book of Regrets.

Wow, you don't get to be my age and not wonder how things might have panned out with a few different choices made, but it's probably best if I don't elaborate on that here as least said is always soonest mended!

Anyhoo. If you spend a lot of time pondering what might have been, then this book might go some way to persuade you that the life you are living may not actually be that bad. You still have an awful lot of choices ahead of you and you can use them to make the life that will fit you best. This book will make you think.

Comments

Violeta by Isabel Allende

Published: 2022, Bloomsbury Genre: Fiction Themes: South America, family relationships, business My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ If I ever tell my life story, I will take a leaf out of Violeta's book and make sure you understand that everybody loved me, and despite all sorts of questionable behaviour on my part, I leave the world as a winner. This is the story of a hundred year life. Violeta is approaching the end, but before she goes she is determined to write out her life story for someone she loves dearly. You don't get to know who that special someone is for most of the book, but that just serves to give the narrative a little twist. I didn't much like the character of Violeta but I understand that people who don't go round upsetting the apple cart don't make for very interesting stories. With such a great time span to play with, Isabel Allende had plenty of scope for changing Violeta's circumstances and adding in references to world events to keep the reader...

Holding by Graham Norton

Published: October 2016, Hodder and Stoughton Genre: fiction Themes: Ireland, crime, secrets, relationships, family My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤ I went into the library looking for a book by Graham Norton as I keep seeing positive comments about his books on Twitter, and I felt I might be missing something. Holding seems to be his first book, and the library copy has a Radio 2 Book Club sticker on it, and I think it's fair to say that it's a perfect book for that reading group. It's a chatty style of writing that I could imagine would be how Graham would recount a tale if he was in conversation with someone, and there are sufficient strong elements to the plot-line to keep it interesting to the end. When I first started reading I thought it was going to be a bit thin on plot, as much of the story involved character descriptions, and I was starting to wonder how it was going to pull together. Then the dramatic events began to unfold and, once I could see how everyon...

The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper

Publisher: Head of Zeus, 2021 Genre: Fiction Themes: Ancient Pompeii, slaves, brothel My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ If, like me, you spent most of your history lessons looking out the window and didn't really absorb very much about the ancient Roman Empire, nil desperandum, as you will still manage perfectly well with this book. Set in first century Pompeii, the story follows the life of Amara, a young Greek woman who has been shipped to Pompeii as a slave and then bought by the owner of The Wolf Den brothel. As the daughter of a doctor, she was bought up in relatively comfortable circumstances, but a series of terrible events turned her life upside down and she is now trapped in an endless cycle of fear and degradation with almost no hope of escape. Amara is one of a group of slaves working in the Wolf Den, and they do what they can to protect one another from serious harm, but Amara knows that if she wants anything better for herself, she must make the brothel ow...

dittybox

Search This Blog