Hi guys, I'm an amateur book reader, and thought I'd post my thoughts on The Midnight Library, a book recommended by fellow Redditors. This post will not really be a spoiler, though there might be a little information about the book reviewed near the end of the post. Don't worry, a heads up would be given.

First off, ratings for the book so you don't have to waste time if lengthy book reviews aren't your thing.

A simple 8/10

Why you should read this book?

If you are like me, and you're new to books, then this book would be the perfect start. It is easy to read, with simple sentence structure and vocabulary not too difficult to understand that you have to Google the definition of every other word. The concept of this book is very simple to understand, without needing to read between the lines too much. Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to any novice reader.

*SPOILERS*

These are not really spoilers, but I would like to share more about the book, whilst getting into a little bit of detail.

This book starts off well, with descriptive phrases and interesting lines to hook the reader. It kept making me want to find out more about the protagonist Nora Seed, and what exactly it was about her that made the book interesting, since, as you will see, she is quite a boring person.

Once the protagonist is introduced, and the book starts developing more, is where the Midnight Library really starts to come to life, explaining a little more about what the Midnight Library is about. Interesting as it may be, the nature of this subject made it such that Matt Haig could not elaborate on too many examples, without making the book boring. Thus, he only dove deep into a few examples of the Midnight Library, summarising the rest of Nora Seed's experiences into a few pages.

Whilst the plot was interesting, I felt as though the book started to lose steam towards the end, giving lackluster conclusions to the later examples, and skimping on a lot of the details.
This book, from my understanding, serves to teach a very simple life lesson of enjoying and appreciating your current life, all the nuances in it, and to understand that longing for 'better outcomes' might not always result in well, better outcomes. This message was simplistic enough for me to understand, as a novice reader, which I really liked about this book.

This book also had many 'hit-me-in-the-gut' feels moments, with many scenes in the book making me feel emotions, something that mov

Some of the Christmas decorations were cut by scissors and stolen. The snowflakes are now scattered all over the ground.

Pure evil.

I know there are many posts on this book, I know because I’ve just read them all in one go.

I loved it. Each chapter I felt like I was begging Matt not to Hollywood end Nora’s story and he did her proud helping her find herself and she did! Very close to my heart. Wonderful. The writing, the references, the themes. Just what I needed. My only disappointment was Waterstones cafe not being open when I bought it for me to devour it instantly.

The theme of possibilities and that moment where you wake up and realise all the crap you thought you needed to be you was everyone else’s wants and needs or a life you’re expected to want but don’t, actually. The book resonated with me so much, how lucky I feel to have this life today and to have chosen I life I want instead of a life of social acceptance bulshittery.

I adore my life today. Just like this book I honestly thought life had to be the perfect wedding photos too and social media accolades too and all that shit we think makes us happy but actually makes us deeply depressed, anxiety riddled and chronically unhappy. I honestly bought into the crap notion that we have to have life figured out and on the path at 18 or we fail and end up lost. No, what this brilliant writer highlights, quite possibly from his own mental health experiences, is that we are not what we are expected to want to strive for, we are in fact however how we choose to see our life. Each time she went back to a regret was a step back into life she thought she regretted, no kiddo, you made the right choices.

I’m so happy she didn’t end up happily ever after in a life she felt was a ‘best fit’. Nothing worse than waking up next to someone you don’t recognise in a life you’re struggling to remember with people who don’t even like you. That’s a reality. Poetry Matt, artistic poetry. Be an active participant in the life you want, ask for help. She did. She always championed the best of the best in people.

Good stuff. Loved it. More please Matt.

By way of background, General Haig led the Somme and Paschendale offensives in which tens of thousands of Canadian soldiers died. My theory is that the son/brother/father of the homeowners was part of those offensives and died under Haig's command. The various sources I looked at (e.g., the Canadian War Museum's page here) suggest that much of the criticism for the massive loss of life during those battles fell on General Haig.

So my question is: Is there any evidence in the historical record of people in Canada (or the Northeastern U.S.) nailing photos of people they don't like under their floorboards? Where did this originate? Was it a superstitious thing? Or perhaps I have misinterpreted the situation and it actually means something else; in which case, what did it mean?

Unfortunately, we have no information on those previous homeowners, so we cannot be more specific about the homeowners' culture background or culture (except that they were probably white Europeans based on the area the home was built).

At first I wasn’t sure whether to deconstruct an article from 14 years ago, regardless of how rubbish or deserving of scorn it was (and believe me, it is full of the mythology that surrounds Haig and the First World War in general) . However, considering that…

1. The mythology of the First World War remains so ubiquitous in public discourse (at least in Britain and the Commonwealth)
2. This particular article has the underserved privilege of being amongst the top 20 Google results when one searches for “Douglas Haig”
3. The fact that it is still referenced in 2021 by sites purporting to be “…created by educators and experts on topics related to education”

…I thought it worth a shot. Dealing with the mythology of the Great War is also fun, and this article contains many hoary old myths in one concise document.

July 1916 and Haig’s Culpability:

Geoffrey Norman (a contributor to such distinguished publications as the Wall Street Journal, Esquire and the American Spectator) begins his piece with the seemingly innocuous observation that “Visiting the Somme battlefield in northern France is largely a matter of going from one Commonwealth Graves Commission cemetery to another”, and how the experience is liable to “stun”, or leave one “overwhelmed”. Fair enough, although bearing in mind that the article is a comprehensive hatchet job on Douglas Haig, Norman’s intent here (as the article goes on to make clear) is that the BEF’S Commander in Chief “killed those men”.

>"The magnitude of the battle still stuns the imagination. The Somme was an epic of both slaughter and futility; a profligate waste of men and materiel such as the world had never seen...he discussed with subordinates methods for continuing the offensive.
>
>Which he did, with a kind of transcendent stubbornness, for another four months, until winter weather forced an end to the campaign, if not the fighting. By then, Haig’s army had suffered more than 400,000 casualties. For the British, in the grave judgment of noted military historian John Keegan, 'the battle was the greatest tragedy…of their national military history' and 'marked the end of an age of vital optimism in British life that has never been recovered.' But Haig was not finished yet..."

This is something of a trope i

It's an absolutely riveting story The kind of story you love to read and miss a lot when you can't find anymore of. I can't recommend this enough. It gives you an entirely new perspective on life. It's a perfect blend of Fiction and Philosophy. But don't let that scare you. It teaches you stuff, doesn't expect you to know anything. There's a beauty in that; which I like.

I'm definitely reading other books by Matt Haig.

I finished Midnight Library by Matt Haig today, released in August 2020. Not long into the book I discovered a major flaw with the execution of the book's premise. To sum up, the protagonist of the book wakes up and is trapped in an otherworldly library, where she can choose from an infinite number of books lining the shelves. Contained in each book is an alternate version of her own life in which she made different choices than in her "root" life. The premise of the book is that she must hop from one version of her life to another, in an attempt to discover the life in which she is truly happy. Once she realizes she's unhappy in one of the lives, she fades out of it and wakes up back in the library, ready to pick another book.

This is not a novel concept, but it is a fun one, ripe for adventure, misadventure and entertainment. Where the author makes a glaring error is in its execution. The protagonist, Nora, doesn't gain any of the knowledge or skills of the version of herself that she's jumping into. In Nora's root life she has an unremarkable existence working at a small music store. But in one life that she jumps into she's a concert pianist! An exciting romp to be sure, in theory. Unfortunately, Haig describes Nora's experience in this life in a single paragraph. She enters the life, discovers she's a world renowned piano player, she walks on stage at a concert, plays disastrously, and wakes back up at the library.

In this instance, how can her experience in this other world be considered a test of her affinity for it? If she had actually lived that life up until this point, she would have all of the ability of a concert pianist, and would have played beautifully to a rapturous crowd. Maybe she would have felt thrill and joy and fulfillment! But neither us, the readers, nor Nora herself, have any idea if she would have been happy in that life, because she never really had a chance to try it out. If you dropped me into the body of a concert pianist and asked me to play in front of a packed theatre of thousands (something I certainly cannot do), I'd be miserable and would want to wake up in another place as well.

This flaw is endemic to the entire book. Again and again the protagonist fumbles through each life, the epitome of imposter syndrome, trying to pretend she knows who she is and what she's doing. Testing out if she'd be happy as a Glaciologist? Get ready to pretend that you have a wealth of scientific knowledge that you don't actually have. T

Just got my room offer for the spring term at Roderick Haig-Brown. I've never lived in that building so I want to know what the building is like from those who have or who are currently living in it. What's it like? Is it nice?

Not the most heavy weight fight in Sabres history but glad to see some actual physical play and standing up for your goalie. I'm liking what I am seeing.

In a year when many will be dealing with their first Christmas without someone they love, the new movie adaptation of A Boy Called Christmas goes even further than the book to address bereavement. The original story has been wrapped in a modern context, with Father Christmas’s tale being told to a young family who are skipping the festive celebrations in response to the loss of their mother.

“Christmas is problematic for a lot of people in terms of mental health, because of the excess alcohol, different routines, seeing family members that they may not want to or remembering family members they’ve lost,” says Haig

One night, long ago, when Matt Haig was trying to help his young son get to sleep, seven-year-old Lucas asked a question: “What was Father Christmas like as a boy?”

“I didn’t have an answer,” recalls the bestselling author. “But I went away and I wrote the answer.”