I actually “read” this book as a book-on-CD, which was my first time doing so. That’s a fairly interesting experience in any case I guess, but for this book especially so, because there’s a bit in the middle where the author talks about how much he values the physical presence of books - how you can lose them, discover them at the bottom of a stack of papers, dog-ear them, etc. Sort of strange to hear that through a set of headphones, but there you have it.

What I appreciated the most about this story was the theme of books-as-conversation-starters. In any number of cases the author and his mother use books as a way to approach topics that would otherwise be too sensitive to discuss directly. The fact that they’re doing so as she is dying from cancer is all the more touching.

However, the book does have a sort of rambling, formless quality (which may well have been sharpened by the book-on-CD format). There’s an awful lot of talking-about-books-in-waiting-rooms, and a fair amount of “then we were busy planning the last X event with mom”-type of story.

Definitely recommended, in any case!