The New York Times bestselling WORLDWIDE phenomenon Winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction | A Good Morning America Book Club Pick | Independent (London) Ten Best Books of the Year “A feel-good book guaranteed to lift your spirits.”—The Washington Post The dazzling reader-favorite about the choices that go into a life well lived, from the acclaimed author of How To Stop Time and The … into a life well lived, from the acclaimed author of How To Stop Time and The Comfort Book.
Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?
In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.
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The Midnight Library felt like an experience; unlike any story I have ever read.
Nora, the protagonist, was thirty-five and full of regrets. She felt her life was no longer worth living and after an act brought on by profound loneliness and despair, she accidently landed in The Midnight Library.
The Midnight Library offers Nora an opportunity to see what life could’ve been, again and again and again. It’s a place where you can see – literally – a book of all of your life regrets and play out what might have been, had you made a different choice.
In her journey Nora realizes that no life will ever be perfect, but ultimately life is always worth living.
Though a work of fiction, this story has a truth that deeply resonated with me and read like a philosophical memoir with a magical twist. It’s clever, unique, and fast paced which made for an easy and enjoyable read despite some of the heavy content.
“The only way to learn is to live.”
“You don’t have to understand life. You just have to live it.”
“It is easy to mourn the lives we aren’t living. Easy to wish we’d developed other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we’d worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga.
It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn’t make and the work we didn’t do and the people we didn’t marry and the children we didn’t have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.
But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It’s the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people’s worst enemy.
We can’t tell if any of those other versions would have been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”
It was over too fast and I will read it again which is not something I do. Already gifted this to one friend and will gift it again. It grabbed my attention and held on as the obvious plot directions were constantly shifting and changing. Well written and in the end left me with a feel good desire to know more about the characters. Read it – listen to it – experience it.
Oh my gosh, what a lovely story! Matt Haig understands the darker nights within our hearts – the regrets, the anxieties. This book focuses on the “What if’s” – what if I had lived differently? What if I were someone else?
Loved it!
I finished this book last week and have already recommended it to a friend’s book club.
I loved this book, and how brilliantly Matt tackled the concept of many lives and alternate realities with ease and simplicity. Fantastic, insightful, philosophical, beautiful.
Loved the premise of the roads not taken, and what if we had taken a different path. Very satisfying read.
What started out as a slightly confusing and depressing story of a woman without joy in her life but with so many regrets turned into a wonderful story of understanding life, joy, happiness and how choices can make us think the worst or think the best. This is a tale to make us realize that there are no perfect lives, regardless of choices, but that the choices for happiness is really in our own hands not in the whimsy of “fate.” This turned out to be a wonderful feel-good read.
Matt Haig comes up with a bold, thought provoking premise – what if you could experience various versions of your life arising due to different choices or circumstances, choosing the one you want – and then delivers with sympathetic characters and a clean, understated writing style well suited to exploring the emotionally charged no man’s land of difficult trade-offs.
A book about a young woman’s regrets and the desperate choice she makes. In the end she overcomes her regrets and sees her life had positive influences. A good book for making us look at the positive in our lives and not the regrets.
My only criticism some of the description is over the top and not needed.
Much of this book was too on-the-nose for me, but regardless the subject matter is incredibly important and I’m glad the book is getting so much attention!
The main character in this book is Nora. This lady is so so depressing, I’m wondering why so many people like this book. This book was interesting to say the least. It wasn’t til I got to the end that i realized why so many people like this book. I like the idea of going to an in-between place and i only hope it’s like the Midnight Library. This book took awhile to get to where it was good but it’s so worth reading thru it.
THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY was a book club pick last month! I hadn’t ever heard of it despite it getting glowing reviews and tons of ratings on Amazon. Overall, I really enjoyed the story and the way we got a glimpse at all of Nora’s lives as she made her way through her alternate timelines. About halfway through the book I knew what the ultimate conclusion would be, but that didn’t spoil the journey. It was a short and sweet read, nothing earth shattering, but fun and easy nonetheless. I immediately picked up another of the author’s books after I was done.
A little predictable, but I love stories about hypothetical lives/ alternative timelines.
I loved this book so much and am off to read everything else by Matt Haig!
Loved it!
A solid 3.5 stars
I appreciated the ending, I was a little uncertain there in the middle.
Somewhat predictable, but a fast read.
We all stop and wonder what our lives might have been had we made a different decision. This story takes you on an exploration of “what might have been” and makes you realize it may be best to leave “well enough” alone. Enjoy the life you have! I thoroughly enjoyed this unique read!
So this book made me remember the movie “the butterfly effect”, in the story, the main protagonist that is a woman named Nora is struggling with her life, she’s lonely and everything is starting to go wrong, she can’t stand it anymore.
Until she appears in a magical library, where she can read different books that will transport her to different versions of her life with infinite possibilities.
So she starts to look for the perfect life and undo her regrets.
A very entertaining read.