Skip to main content

The Midnight Library and Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

I love Dolly Parton. For so many reasons, including that she's a badass feminist with a massive heart of gold who has contributed to kid's literacy among other charitable causes, including contributing to funding of the Moderna vaccine. Oh, and her incredible musical catalogue, of course.

But this story only about Dolly peripherally. Recently, Dolly did an interview with the NY Times, and she mentioned that she's been reading a book called The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll have heard of this book as it's on all the lists this year. It's about a 35 year old woman called Nora Seed whose life is just not working out the way she hoped it would — in any area at all. She decides it's time to end things, and after she tries to do so, she finds herself in a place between life and death called The Midnight Library where her childhood library explains that she can try on different versions of her life to see what would have happened if she made different decisions she currently has regrets about. 

I loved the premise, and it was a smooth read, but I have to be honest — it didn't capture my heart in quite the same way it seems to have done for Dolly and everyone else. Perhaps it's because I've never truly been suicidal, so I can't quite relate to some of the feelings Nora finds herself dealing with, but I've certainly dealt with depression, and regrets? I've got plenty. I'm happy to hear the book has done so much for folks, but for me, ultimately, I gave it just three stars. 

At any rate, I love reading books about books or libraries, so this topic pleased me, and reminded me of a book I've had lying around for a while which I bought for a discount price from Bookoutlet.ca, I think. Anyway, the book is Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew J. Sullivan, and I'd heard great reviews. Also, people seemed to talk about it being a mystery which I couldn't quite tell from the description, but I took their word for it and I am very glad I did. 

The book is about a woman named Lydia who works as a clerk in a bookstore, and they have a variety of patrons who are under-employed men referred to as Book Frogs who are somewhat down on their luck, but are welcome to hang out and spend their days among the stacks. The book starts out with Lydia discovering one of her favourite Book Frogs, Joey, has taken his life and when he died, he was holding a picture of Lydia as a child. Needless to say, this is a very bizarre situation, and Lydia has to figure out how Joey came to find this photo, why he killed himself, and some lingering back story of a childhood trauma weaves its way into the tale as well. 

A mark of a great read to me is when I find it easy to keep picking the book up and pouring my attention into it without having to make an effort to keep going. This book required absolutely no effort to keep reading — I was utterly hooked after the first 50 pages, and happily kept going with enthusiasm to the end. I guessed the ending a bit before it happened, but overall, it was a beautifully layered mystery that I'm happy to have read. The story also does a great job of including the city of Denver as an important part of the story and atmosphere. I've never been to Denver myself, though I have a few co-workers there, but I can imagine myself liking the place. I gave this one a full five stars, even though it wasn't perfect and some of the bits around people hitting on Lydia were a bit over the top. A solid read, nonetheless.

The moral of the story here is that I heartily approve of people writing more books about books and libraries or bookstores. The end.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth

Photo by Tiko Giorgadze on Unsplash Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the opportunity to read and review an advanced reader's copy of this book. The Younger Wife was a satisfying, fast-paced romp of a read. Sally Hepworth has become a reliable favourite for books that I can't put down! She has a way of writing dark subjects lightly, and her characters are always richly developed, full of flaws and quirks— which I love. I find with her writing, I never quite know how things will turn out in the end, and The Younger Wife was no exception.  The book is told from the perspectives of Tully and Rachel, two adult sisters, as well as from the perspective of their father's new fiancé, Heather. Tully and Rachel's mother has dementia and is in a nursing home, so understandably, their father, Stephen, wants to move forward with life and has found love with Heather, who is notably younger than him, which doesn't sit well with the sisters. I found the characte
Post a Comment
Read more

Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling by Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen

  I haven't been so utterly besotted with a character as I was with Aisling in a very, very long time. I also think this audiobook may have broken some records on the number of times it made me snort laugh out loud with the endless Irish-isms, and the genuine hilarious earnestness of our dear Aisling.  It's no secret that I love/am fairly obsessed with any and everything Irish. I'm Canadian as can be, but my paternal grandmother has roots in Ireland (and shared many of the cultural perspectives that came up in this book for the country folk, it turns out), and my mother's grandmother had family from Northern Ireland, I think. Anyway, like I said, I'm Canadian af, and so are my parents and their parents, so I'm certainly not claiming citizenship here or something. But I do think some very old family traits and traditions have made it down the line to the things we still find ourselves doing today. Additionally, many of my fond memories are due to a tiny, spritel
Post a Comment
Read more

Tana French and Revisiting Broken Harbor

I first heard about Tana French back in 2014, and started with In the Woods, the first in her Dublin Murder Squad series. I was quickly hooked, as is to be expected when you're dealing with a writer as talented with atmospheric world building and complex, nuanced characters. As I'm wont to do, I rushed into her other books, Faithful Place, Broken Harbor, and eventually The Likeness. The Secret Place I didn't have until January 2015, and then after that it was The Trespasser, and finally The Witch Elm as they came out.  In my early rush to consume everything she'd written, I found myself a little disappointed with Broken Harbor— the 4th in the Dublin Murder Squad series. Admittedly, having read it so long ago, and so quickly, there's a lot of the story that I no longer even remember.  Our main crime happens in a small real estate development a ways outside of Dublin, which has been hit hard by the recession of 2008. It's half built and abandoned, except for those
Post a Comment
Read more