Hi all, what a good meeting we had, albeit by Zoom to discuss The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. This book is a rift on the time travel/relive your life theme that we had in Replay and The Time Traveler's Wife and in some ways The Wizard of Oz and "It's aWonderful Life".. More successful than some of the genre, it was a charming take although not the most insightful of the lot.
The clever idea of a library filled with all the books that describe a version of one's life kept the plot moving along as Nora Seed selects one volume after another, tries out the life and one by one goes back to the library for another shot. While I personally would have stuck with the rock star version, Nora finds her way back to her original life and finds that her place it in meant a lot to those around her. There's no place like home.
While we found fodder to nitpick with the way things worked out (why didn't she know anything about the life she just dropped into? Wasn't she supposed to be living it?) overall, it was easy to overlook the flaws and enjoy the feel-good outcome. A good read!
And on we go - our next meeting is February 21, if that works for all. We had hoped to read The Henna Artist and have a Zoom with the author. Jean is working with Alka Joshi on possible dates for March as she is booked for February. Our backup book is The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles. I wonder if we should go ahead and read The Henna Artist and perhaps schedule a special session with the author. The Towles book is quite long and time is relatively short. Let me know what you all think, I can do whatever the group wants.
Our March date, author meeting aside, is March 21 unless we come up with a good date with Alka Joshi.
See you all soon, weigh in on what you prefer!
