We brought Yoga Book Club back to Heights this October, and WOW did we start strong! We opted for fiction over personal growth (joke’s on us…) and chose to read “The Midnight Library”, written by Matt Haig. In TML, Nora Seed discovers an infinite library, where it’s always midnight…and the shelves are filled with stories of how your life would have been, had you made any number of changes along the way.
I can’t wait to meet with you all on Friday, 10/22 at 7:00 for a fun yoga flow and to hear your thoughts on this book!
Discussion Questions
The Midnight Library is different for each person who enters it. Nora experienced it as a library because of the meaningful relationship she had with Mrs. Elm, her childhood school librarian. Later, we learn that Hugo experienced it as a video store, with a cherished uncle instead of a librarian.
- *What do you think your Midnight Library would be?
- *Who would be there?
Nora experiences a number of alternate lives in which she achieves a great deal of success in one area of her life at the expense of all the rest (music, swimming, polar exploration, etc.)
- *Do you think it’s possible to excel in one area of your life, and still maintain balance in all other areas?
- *Which of Nora’s alternative lives did you find the most interesting?
Throughout the novel, Nora’s perspective allows her to see how people had blamed her for their shortcomings throughout her life. She then realizes that the different realities she chose—the regrets she chose to “undo”—she had chosen in hopes of better outcomes for her loved ones.
- *What is the significance of this realization?
- *Does it help her move forward in her own life?
- *Do you tend to prioritize others over yourself when making decisions in your life, or vice versa?
In her life before the Midnight Library, Nora gave up many of the pursuits that brought her joy because she didn’t feel like she could be the best at them.
- *Do you think it’s understandable that she would have given these things up?
- *Do you think that wanting to be the best at something can inhibit us from enjoying it?
Mrs. Elm showed Nora the Book of Regrets when she first entered the library, and Nora was overwhelmed by it when she first looked in. But as she experienced more and more lives, her list of regrets began to shrink. Do you think by considering the ways in which our lives might have turned out differently our regrets truly go away, or do we simply learn to live with them?
Why do you think Nora chose to go back to her root life?
What were your takeaways from The Midnight Library?
Would you recommend this book? To whom, and why?
