“The End of Your Life Book Club” by Will Schwalbe – The Celebration of Life Itself

Will Schwalbe’s mother, Mary Anne, was diagnosed with a rare type of hepatitis upon returning from a humanitarian trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and a few months later, she received an additional diagnosis: she was sick from an advanced form of pancreatic cancer, giving her from six months to a year to live at best. Under these circumstances, Will and Mary Anne decided to open up a book club for themselves, and that’s what The End of Your Life Book Club is all about.

The book describes the journey Will took with his mother for the next two years, as they read books of virtually all genres, discussing them deeply, and more importantly, how the lessons learned within can be applied to their lives. Despite the morbidity of the whole context, the book remains quite humorous, especially when it comes to the dialog.

They drift off from the books themselves on many occasions, touching on various everyday topics that we all think about from time to time, such as our ability to listen versus our ability to express ourselves or simple acts of gratitude. In the end though, I found that this novel was more about the power books have when we immerse ourselves into them, how they can take you an entirely different world and fill you with emotions you could rarely, if ever experience in your daily life.

For those of you out there who want fast-paced books with a lot of action, I’d suggest skipping out on this one; there is no real story to it, other than that of a mother bonding with her son through the power of literature during the last moments of her life. 

Naturally, despite all the humor and light-heartedness the theme of death is highly present in this book, still looming in the background even when it is not mentioned, perhaps reminding us of how differently we would lead our lives if we were to know when our time comes.

All in all, it’s a very deep and moving book that basically celebrates life and the relationship people can have with each other as well as books. It’s about how reading can become a way of living, about how going face-to-face death can change your life, and I definitely recommend it to anyone who doesn’t mind slow-paced books that actually have something important to convey.

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Will Schwalbe Will Schwalbe is an American writer who serves on the boards of governors of the Asian American Writers Workship, the Yale University Press as well as the Kingsborough Community College Foundation. In addition, he is the founder and CEO of www.cookstr.com, and once served as the editor in chief of Hyperion Books. So far he wrote two books, Send and The End of Your Life Book Club.