As we know from Matt Haig’s non-fiction work “Reasons To Stay Alive”, at the age of just 24 he had a major depressive breakdown in which he contemplated suicide. It took him many years to recover and writing was one of the things that helped him cope. He has now become a best-selling author of both non-fiction and fiction for adults and children and this novel is clearly influenced substantially by his personal experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nora Seed is a 35 year old woman living in Bedford who managed to obtain a first class degree in philosophy (Henry David Thoreau was her favourite thinker), but suffers from serious depression and feels that her life has been a series of failures. She attempts suicide – but then she finds herself in a strange kind of huge library where she is given the opportunity to visit other versions of her life based on different decisions that she has made in her so-called root life – a version of the multiple universes theory of quantum physics. She explores many other lives, eight of which are described in some detail, but which does she choose and why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nora is told by the librarian” “you can choose choices but not outcomes”<\/em>. Of course, when we make our choices, we don’t know the outcomes which can lead to a life of regrets. This novel is hardly a work of great literature but it is very readable storytelling with insightful observations on life and an uplifting message. It has been a major bestseller and it is bound to be made into a film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As we know from Matt Haig’s non-fiction work “Reasons To Stay Alive”, at the age of just 24 he had a major depressive breakdown in which he contemplated suicide. It took him many years to recover and writing was one of the things that helped him cope. He has now become a best-selling author of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27018"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27019,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27018\/revisions\/27019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}