The Midnight Library
Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices... Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?” A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived, from the internationally bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and How To Stop Time. 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 new 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.
Stats for nerds
4recommend
8mentions
8people
2020–2025years
50% recommend38% neutral13% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Last week I finished "The Midnight Library" by Matt Haig, it's about having regrets for the things you did or didn't do in your life and how those things could have turned out if you made different choices, pretty good book. Currently I read "Healing back pain" by John E. Sarno I'm halfway through and think it's interesting so far, yesterday I also started "Eversion" by Alastair Reynolds, can't say much about it because I only read 10 pages, but Reynolds' books are mostly pretty good.
- I can recommend Midnight library (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52578297-the-midnight-li...). It is about what path we choose in life and what other paths could have for us.
- I didn't read as much as I normally do, mostly due to school, but I really enjoyed "The Midnight Library" and "Recursion" for fiction.
I am mostly done with Antifragile, and it's pulling me between political and philosophical sides. Don't know which side I'll land on, or how long I'll stay there.
As a side note, I've found "Deep Learning: A Visual Approach" to be very instructive.
- The book "The Midnight Library" by Matt Haig does a good job easing that "what if" regret. It shows how each "ideal/better" life can come with its own major negative consequences.
- I really enjoyed this article but the claim of no literary fiction making the Publishers Weekly yearly top 10 lists since 2001 isn't really true:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publishers_Weekly_list_of_best...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publishers_Weekly_list_of_best...
It is true that there isn't that much literary stuff that breaks through, and the stuff that does is usually somewhat crossover (e.g., All the Light We Cannot See in 2015 or Song of Achilles in 2021) but it exists. These two books are shelved under literary codes (though also historical). Song of Achilles in particular is beautifully written and a personal favorite of mine, at least among books published in recent years.
Then there are other works like Little Fires Everywhere and The Midnight Library that I might not consider super literary but nonetheless are also often considered so by book shops or libraries (e.g., https://lightsailed.com/catalog/book/the-midnight-library-a-...; the lit fic code is FIC019000).
I was really surprised that Ferrante's Neapolitan series, the best example (I would have thought) of recent work with both high literary acclaim and popular appeal, did not actually make the top 10 list for any year.
- I love the design and the site.
but.. I am not liking the recommendations. I consider The Midnight Library to be one of the worst books I have read this year, but it has highest ratings in Sci Fi beating Project Hail Mary By Andy Weir and Klara and the Sun By Kazuo Ishiguro
