Book Review Robert Wiersema THE END OF YOUR LIFE BOOK CLUB by Will Schwalbe At first, the book club didn’t have a name. It didn’t really need one. In fact, it was barely a book club at all, with only two members – Mary Anne Schwalbe and her son Will – and a casual, but regular schedule. It did have a mandate, though: the members would meet to talk about books, and life, during Mary Anne’s treatment for aggressive pancreatic cancer. WhenWill Schwalbe wrote about his mother and their shared experiences of books, the world came to know their meetings as The End of Your Life Book Club. The book, published in 2012, became a bestseller and an international sensation; people were drawn to Schwalbe’s stories of his mother’s last days, her life and experiences, and the books which they shared. And rightly so. The End of Your Life Book Club is a wonderful read, graceful and wise, sad but uplifting, and affirming in the way of only the best books. With his new book, Books for Living, Schwalbe builds on his experience of reading with his mother, and on a lifetime immersed in books (including a career in various parts of the publishing industry). He also shifts away somewhat from the personal; while in The End of Your Life Book Club the focus embraces the story of the end of his mother’s life, Books for Living is focused, as youmight have guessed, on the books themselves (although the personal does creep in, as it does with any reading experience). “The book you are reading now is a manifesto of sorts,” Schwalbe writes in the introduction. “My manifesto, a manifesto for readers. Because I think we need to read and to be readers now more than ever.” What follows is a collection of books which will help readers navigate “our modern world, with all its noise and distractions.” Don’t let the earnestness of that explanation put you off, though. This isn’t a simple re-hash of why we should read the classics, or a collection of books that are good for you. “Some are undoubtedly among the great works of our time,” Schwalbe writes, adding, “others almost certainly are not.” This eclectic approachmakes for an often-surprising selection of titles. Schwalbe recommends Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, a recognized classic, alongside Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train, a contemporary bestseller. Haruki Murakami’sWhat I Talk About When I Talk About Running, a very personal non-fiction title from the Japanese cult writer, alongside Antoine de Saint-Exupery’sThe Little Prince, a surreal classicmost often found in the children’s section. It’s clear that Schwalbe isn’t evaluating the books according to some academic standard or arbitrary notion of “quality.” Rather, like his conversations with his mother in the first book, the titles have been chosen for the lessons which they can impart. Thus, his commentary onDavid Copperfieldconcerns ‘remembering’, while the discussion of The Girl on the Train is about ‘trusting’. Not surprisingly, Schwalbe’s analysis of The Little Prince concerns ‘finding friends’, while the fact that his take-away from Murakami’s account of distance running and training concerns ‘napping’ is both amusing and well-argued. (I agree, for the record – I’m far more likely to nap than run a marathon). The result is a book that feels like a conversation. Schwalbe’s summaries and analyses will force you to re-examine your perceptions of books with which you are familiar, and will encourage you to explore titles that you have not yet read. In that way, Books for Living serves as a literal expansion of the book club which readers explored in The End of Your Life Book Club. Now, membership is no longer limited to Schwalbe and his mother; anyone can join, and should. Reading Books For Living – and the books that it recommends – could enrich and change your life. 38 | www.snowbirds.org
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