Page 15 - PGA Community News - March '23

March 2023 March 2023 PGA C.A.N.!, Page 15
Book Review

The Midnight Library certain to make the Olympic return to the Midnight Library and try another. But at some
team, she decided to give point her time will run out.
By Nils A. Shapiro up the sport. A talented Mrs. Elm reaches for a particular volume from a shelf
Have you ever wondered piano player, songwriter near her, The Book of Regrets, as a possible reference for
what your life would be and member of her brother, Nora to consider.
like now if you had made Joe’s, band, the Labyrinths, I will leave it for you to discover the life that Nora
different decisions at she quit just as they were believes will make her happy, among them:
various critical moments in about to get their big break. • The life of a rich and famous rock star she became by
your life? Taken a different Inspired by her interest staying with her brother’s band.
job? Decided to take that in the environment, she • The comfortable wife of the kind, gentle man whom
vacation trip instead of considered becoming a she had always regretted turning down years ago when they
canceling it? Asked a glaciologist, but gave up were young and he asked her out for a cup of coffee, and
different girl out on a date? the idea. That’s the way her now he is a successful surgeon and she the mother of their
Married a different person? life has been, for reasons adorable daughter.
Each decision you make has the potential to change she chalks up to problems Or, as the author puts it (with ellipses added here to take
everything about the rest of your life. in her relationship with her parents. the place of text left out for lack of space): “She had been a
What if you were offered the opportunity to see what The book’s brief opening section begins, “Nineteen years rock star, an Olympian, a music teacher, a primary school
your life would have been like if you had made different before she decided to die, Nora Seed….” Several pages later teacher, a CEO, a PA, a chef, a glaciologist, a climatologist,
decisions at those critical moments? we begin, “Twenty-seven hours before she decided to die, an acrobat, a tree-planter, an audit manager, a hairdresser,
That is the intriguing premise of author Matt Haig’s Nora Seed.…” A knock on her door provides for an already a professional dog walker, an office clerk, a software
newest bestselling book, the third of his novels that I have depressed Nora yet another blow: A young man is sorry to developer, a receptionist, a hotel cleaner, a politician, a
thoroughly enjoyed and will have now reviewed in this tell her that her cat, Voltaire, has been hit by a passing car lawyer, a shoplifter, the head of an ocean protection charity,
column. The earlier two were: The Humans, about an alien and is lying on the street, dead. Nora writes a brief suicide a shop worker (again), a waitress, a first-line supervisor, a
sent to our planet by his kind to assassinate a college professor note, swallows a few antidepressant pills and a bottle of glass-blower and a thousand other things … There had, in
who has made a major scientific discovery they feel is too wine, then passes out. short, been a lot of lives … Sometimes she was in a life for
dangerous to be left in the hands of “inferior” Earthlings, Not expecting to awaken, when her eyes open Nora is less than a minute, while in others she was there for days
and How to Stop Time, an equally captivating story about surprised to find herself outside a strange building. Inside or weeks … It seemed the more lives she lived, the harder
the life of a 400-year-old man, member of a small, secret is a single giant room filled floor to ceiling with countless it was to feel at home anywhere.”
global society of ageless humans who dare not let the rest aisles of books covered in shades of green, on metal racks Importantly, what Nora – and we – learn is that the
of mankind know they exist. Their one cardinal rule: Never as far as she can see – all of the racks moving rapidly back decisions we all make affect not only ourselves but others
fall in love! You can make no personal attachments. and forth, stopping, then moving again. in our lives as well, sometimes profoundly, and must be
Instead, he must change identities and move often before Suddenly, she sees one person, a woman she recognizes: weighed in the consideration.
people realize that he ages so slowly as if not at all. In the Mrs. Elm, the kind, gentle librarian she knew from her There is, very near the end of the book, a one-and-a-half
present, he is a college history teacher – the perfect role high school, who explains to Nora that she is now in the page note ostensibly written by Nora, but which I assume
for one who actually performed with Shakespeare and lived Midnight Library, a place between life and death … and to reflect the views of the author. Under the title, “A Thing
through the centuries of events he discusses with students. that each of the many books on the shelves is the story of a I Have Learned (Written By a Nobody Who Has Been
A wonderful book! life that would have been Nora’s if she had made a different Everybody),” it is a wise and thoughtful reflection about
The Midnight Library is another absorbing read, 288 decision from the one she did make at so many important life that for me is the most memorable passage in these
pages that I finished in three sittings. points in her life – each taking her down a different path pages – one that deserves to be copied, printed and hung
Nora Seed is a 35-year-old woman who has given up on toward a different journey. And now Nora was being offered in every home as an uplifting reminder about the present
life. She lives alone, except for her cat, Voltaire. Volts, for an opportunity to select a different life, rather than the one lives we have chosen for ourselves.
short. Everything she had thought she wanted never panned from which she has decided to escape. If she finds one that This one belongs in your library, any time of day or
out. Among the top high school swimmers in America and fulfills her, she can stay and complete it; if not, she will night.

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