I've recently started reading The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe. I rarely read new releases, mostly because I'm cheap, but also because I have a book list that goes on into eternity. The only queue hopping that happens are new books by my favorite authors, which Schwalbe is not. Well, at least not yet.

The book is a memoir framed by the books Schwalbe and his mother read during the last years (maybe months, I'm not sure, I'm only a chapter in) of her life. It is a rather brilliant way to tell a story, which is what initially drew me in to the book (plus a handful of really glowing reviews). And I'm glad I pushed aside my normal list if only for this paragraph that appears in the very first chapter:

"We all have a lot more to read than we can read and a lot more to do than we can do. Still, one of the things I learned from Mom is this: Reading isn't the opposite of doing; it's the opposite of dying. I will never be able to read my mother's favorite books without thinking of her -- and when I pass them on and recommend them, I'll know that some of what made her goes with them; that some of my mother will live on in those readers, reader who may be  inspired to love the way she loved and do their own version of what they did in the world."

That is just about the most beautiful description of reading I have ever had the pleasure to come across, and I had to share it with you, my fellow lovers of reading.



Meg