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The End of Your Life Book Club
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End of the year Book Club
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[book:The End of Your Life Book Club|13414676
This was the end-of-the-year meeting for the PAEast Bookclubbers. The first task was to finalise the next year’s reading roster. After that, we took on the book of the month.
The End of your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe is a book about a shared love of books between a mother and her son. Written by the son, this book is about a book club with just two members - Will Schwalbe and his mother, Mary Ann Schwalbe, who is dying of pancreatic cancer. The book club of just the two would meet only in the waiting rooms of hospitals and clinics, and occasionally in the chemotherapy rooms in the cancer wards, as the son accompanied his mother to her medical visits. As they waited for tests, or treatments or to see the doctor, they exchanged books and recommendations for suggested readings by each other.
What follows is a glowing memoir of a mother, a journey through the ups and downs of cancer treatments, a window into the life of a highly accomplished woman, and a string of books in between.
What this is not is a book about books. Sure there are many authors and even more titles littered and strewn throughout the book. And yes, there are certain passages where the chosen books reflect the author’s thoughts. So what is the book really about?
We Bookclubbers had differing opinions on this. An ode to a mother by a loving son? An immortalisation of a book-loving and library-building mother, in a book, to be filed on library shelves for generations to read? A vehicle for a homosexual son to ride into his mother’s affections? Or a book where the books are used as an excuse for conversations?
Inadvertantly, it is also a book about the human spirit, and the will to survive. While the medical community and its experts may diagnose and offer prognosis, it is ultimately the human spirit that choses to fight and live for its passions and loves.
It was the last book of this year for our book club. It has been an exciting time in our book club and we look forward to an even better one ahead. See you all after the summer. In the mean time, Happy Reading.
- Neetu Aggarwal.