Books for Living: A Reader's Guide to Life

Author(s): Will Schwalbe

Reading

From the author of the best-selling and beloved The End of Your Life Book Club - a wonderfully engaging new book: both a celebration of reading in general and an impassioned recommendation of specific books that can help guide us through our daily lives. 'I'm on a search and have been all my life: to find books to help me make sense of the world, to help me become a better person, to help me get my head around the big questions that I have, and figure out the answers to some of the small ones while I'm at it' Will Schwalbe 'I've always believed that everything you need to know you can find in a book', writes Will Schwalbe in his introduction to this thought-provoking, heart-felt, and often inspiring new book about books. In each chapter he makes clear the ways in which a particular book has helped to shape how he leads his own life and the ways in which it might help to shape ours. He talks about what brought him to each book - or vice versa; the people in his life he associates each book with; how each has led him to other books; how each is part of his understanding of himself in the world. And he relates each book to a question of our daily lives, for example: Melville's Bartelby, the Scrivener speaks to quitting; 1984 to disconnecting from our electronics; James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room to the power of connecting with people face to face; Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea to taking time to recharge; Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird to being sensitive to the surrounding world; The Little Prince to finding friends; Elie Wiesel's Night to choosing to do something in the face of injustice; Paula Hawkins's The Girl on the Train to trusting. Here, too, are books by Dickens, Daphne Du Maurier, Murakami, Edna Lewis, E.B. White and Hanya Yanagihara, among many others. A treasure of a book for everyone who loves books, loves reading, and loves to hear the answer to the question: 'What have you been reading lately?' In an age where we can Google the answer to everything, Will Schwalbe has always believed that the answer to everything can actually be found in a book if we just slow down enough to find out and then take the time to think about it and share with others. Books for Living is a wide ranging exploration of what books can teach us in the modern age. Books covered include: David Copperfield Rebecca Stuart Little The Importance of Living Giovanni's Room Bird by Bird 'I used to say that the greatest gift you could ever give anyone is a book. But I don't say that anymore because I no longer think it's true. I now say that a book is the second greatest gift. I've come to believe that the greatest gift you can give anyone is to take the time to talk with someone about a book you've shared. A book is a great gift; the gift of your interest and attention is even greater' Will Schwalbe

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In Books for Living the brilliant Will Schwalbe takes us on a personal journey through a life of reading. But like any great journey, it is far more than an accumulation of miles, or words. Books for Living is a map, a chart, to the places deep inside ourselves where books can take us. It's about how stories, how characters, inspire us, guide us, reveal us. Books For Living is now one of my favourite reads of all time, and I know I will revisit it over and over. But be warned. It's also quite an expensive book to read since I kept calling my local bookseller and ordering the volumes Will mentions in each chapter. This is a beautiful, powerful, warm, funny, awe-inspiring odyssey. An absolutely astonishing gift to all of us who have spent our lives loving books. Louise Penny, author of the C. I. Gamache crime series ***PRAISE FOR WILL SCHWALBE'S THE END OF YOUR LIFE BOOK CLUB*** I was so moved by this marvellous book. Schwalbe has done something extraordinary: made a personal journey public in the most engaging, funny and revealing way possible. It is a true meditation on what books can do. Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes Will Schwalbe gives us two love stories in one: That of his relationship with his dynamo of a mother as her horizons shrink, and that of their mutual devotion to the printed word, infinitely and insistently engaging. Tender and touching and beautifully done. Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Cleopatra A perfect book-club book about books and the community they create that also portrays the love between mother and son. Library Journal Will Schwalbe's brave and soulful elegy to his remarkable mother, his recollection of their sparklingly literate conversations, is a timely reminder that one exceptional person, or one exceptional book, can be a torch in the darkness. You'll turn the last page wishing you'd met Mary Anne Schwalbe, vowing to be worthy of her incandescent example - and promising yourself to read more. J. R. Moehringer, author of The Tender Bar A wonderful book about wonderful books and mothers and sons and the enduring braid between them. Like the printed volumes it celebrates, this story will stay with you long after the last page. Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays With Morrie and The Time Keeper This touching and insightful memoir about the slow process of dying will appeal to readers of Tuesdays With Morrie and The Last Lecture, but also to people who love delving into books and book discussions. Like Mary Anne, who reads the ending first, you know how this book is going to end, but while it is a story about death, it is mostly a celebration of life and of the way books can enrich it. Booklist (starred review) At last a book that celebrates the role books play within our own story. Will Schwalbe has created a tender, moving and honest portrayal of the precious relationship between a mother and son - an ode to that beautiful thing called love. Cecilia Ahern, author of PS, I Love You an astonishing, pertinent, and wonderfully welcome work. Publishers Weekly starred review a moving and inspiring story Choice Magazine What self-respecting reader isn't a sucker for a great book about other great books? The End of Your Life Book Club is that much and more. BookPage An extraordinarily wise, witty, and quietly wrenching book about parental love, filial love, profound grief, and literature's great consolations. How wonderful to encounter a writer who combines erudition with great emotional honesty, and who isn't afraid of addressing life's most profound and baffling questions. Douglas Kennedy, author of Leaving the World and The Pursuit of Happiness a graceful, affecting testament to a mother and a life well lived. Entertainment Weekly a tribute to a remarkable woman and an exemplary reader. Salon Literature bridges generations in Will Schwalbe's thoughtful tribute to his late mother Vogue.com A truly poignant read ... a moving tribute to a wonderful-sounding mum and the power of fiction. Good Housekeeping It helps of course if you are a book lover and can relate to the passion for reading, but even prolific readers will find that the book teaches them not only about life and death but about the power of a really good book to move you and peel off the onion skin layers of "what you already know" and reveal truths. Curious Book Fans a life-enhancing celebration of the power of books and reading, very much in the vein of Tuesdays with Morrie Independent

General Fields

  • : 9781444790788
  • : Hodder & Stoughton
  • : Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
  • : 0.308
  • : September 2016
  • : 216mm X 135mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : January 2017
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : 288
  • : 117
  • : Paperback
  • : Will Schwalbe