The Not the End of Your Life Book Club
On Reading Books with Your Mom
I don’t remember what they were talking about, but I remember the laughter, loud and conspiratorial, from the front seat of the car. “We’re friends now,” my mom said of my sister and herself. “When you’re older, maybe we can be friends, too.”
•••
On July 15, 2022, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Spoiler alert: she’s okay now. This is not that kind of story.
At the time, I was devastated. Completely freaked out and immediately, compulsively, imagining her funeral. Because that’s what cancer does, especially to an anxious brain, already prone to imagining family members die. Except this was different: this was my mom. Of course, I love my mom and always have. But there is nothing like a cancer diagnosis to make you reckon with the immensity of a relationship in your life.
I needed to do something, desperately. To be useful, I admit, maybe more for myself than her. My sister crocheted her hats for when chemotherapy would take her hair. Friends and family made meals for when she’d be unable to cook. My parents had enough money. I cannot crochet, nor cook well, and nor do I have money. Graphic design, my one skill, did not seem particularly useful at that moment. As usual, I was left with just my time and energy—both massively diminished with a job and an infant I was worried might not know his grandmother. What would I do?
•••
A few years before, I read a book called The End of Your Life Book Club, a memoir by Will Schwalbe. In it, Schwalbe starts an informal book club with his mother during her cancer treatment.
Spoiler alert: she dies. It was that kind of story.
But, along the way, they pass the time by talking about, exchanging, and reading books. It’s a beautiful story, and a testament to the power of books to bring comfort, beauty, and connection to lives that are inherently and painfully short. In another of Schwalbe’s books, Books for Living, he writes:
I’ve come to believe that the greatest gift you can give people is the time to talk with them about a book you’ve shared. A book is a great gift; the gift of your interest and attention is even greater.
I couldn’t agree more.
One of the great joys of visiting my parents’ house was and is seeing the books stacked next to my mom’s chair at all times. At every family gathering, we’d chat a bit about them and what the two of us were reading. But it was always elevator-pitch-style, cut short by the need to prepare food or the demands of a nephew climbing on my back. We both read so completely at whim, that we hardly ever talked about the same book, even when we’d lent the other person a copy. I thought it would be nice—and, maybe, helpful—to change that, and for once, read the same book at the same time.
You see where this is going. Thanks to Schwalbe, I had the idea to start a book club with my mom. But, I hesitated. If this book club was inspired by another mom-with-cancer-book-club, one in which the mom dies from cancer, would I be cursing my mom to share the same fate? Or, at least, overly anticipating it? I’m not superstitious, but apparently, when it comes to my mom—to quote Michael Scott—“I’m a little stitious.” I decided to push through.
We started our book club that December, but I didn’t tell her the inspiration for the idea (she’ll find out when she reads this—hi, mom!). Hell, I’m nervous about the karmic implications of admitting it in this newsletter. But ideas don’t bring back cancer. And our book club is one of the best things in my life.
•••
As of May 2024, we’ve read and discussed 19 books together, alternating picks each time:
Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographic Marks by Keith Houston
The Happiest Man on Earth: The Beautiful Life of an Auschwitz Survivor by Eddie Jaku
Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players by Stefan Fatsis
The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. Schwab
“Damn, this list is righteous,” my friend Matt said when I sent it to him.
I love it. There are no rules. As long as the book is of interest in some way, we read it. We’ve both read books we probably never would have otherwise. My mom, bless her heart, suffered through a (fascinating, to me) history of punctuation marks.2 I rarely—or never—read historical fiction or romance thrillers, but I loved every second, knowing I’d talk about it with my mom. We agreed Verity wasn’t very good (sorry, CoHorts)—but we still both tore through it in two days, because damn, was that trash compelling. We discussed my mom’s attraction to overcoming-the-odds memoirs, the sentences I underlined, metaphors in genre fiction, and, inevitably, death.
In this list there are picks to our individual tastes, picks that stretch ourselves (and each other); there are picks we’ve read in days and picks we’ve taken weeks to get through. There are picks carefully chosen and ones made completely at whim. There’s literature, genre fiction, autobiography, youth, and (soon to be more) essays.
My mom stopped cancer treatment many months ago, but our book club still goes strong, and there are no signs of stopping. I was worried this would be an “End of Your Life Book Club.” It’s not. But, in a way, I hope it becomes one. Nothing would make me happier than reading books, with my mom, until we’re dead. What started as a way to help my mom get through chemotherapy has become much, much more.
•••
“You know there’s tons of sex in her books, right?” My sister said, when my mom told her we were going to read Colleen Hoover. “Are you sure you want to read that together?”
“Yep,” I said, a little smug, confident mom and I could read, and talk, about anything.
“We can read it,” I would have said, if this were a novel. “Because we’re friends now.”
I love you mom. Thanks for being my mom, my reading buddy, my friend.
P.S. My first subtitle idea for this essay was “or, the fear of cancer returning by reading Colleen Hoover”
If you made it this far, thank you SO much for reading. This one means a lot to me. I’m still figuring out this newsletter business but I’d love to write more book-ish, personal essays like this one. So, if this resonated in any way, please let me know with a comment, a like, or a share. If you’re reading this in your email inbox, feel free to forward to a friend.
If you’re new here: Hi, I’m Nathaniel! I write about books, design, and book design. I also send out occasional dispatches about what I’m writing, reading, and designing. If that sounds good to you, and you like what you just read, please consider a free subscription.
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Do you know where the paragraph indent comes from? Back when monks were handwriting manuscripts, they would leave a gap at the beginning of a paragraph to later draw an illustrated pilcrow (¶), symbolizing a new paragraph. But, it turns out, even monks had deadlines. And so many a manuscript went without, leaving the gap we know today as the indent.
Loved this Nate, you're a talented writer!
Dear Nate Morrison,
Though we’ve never formally met, I’ve “known” you since your Mother’s and my EMU MATESOL days. She so proudly spoke of you and your sisters then (and still does) that I felt as if I’d met you all. Camping and travel adventures, school projects (yours, not hers- ha!), and scrapbooking. (I still bug her about scrapbooking!). Your middle and high school..and some other years since. She’s so proud of you, Nate (and your sisters, Ev, and now your child/her second grandchild). I can see why. This tribute to your Mom is beyond beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing…and for giving an inspiring book list. - Terri Hamoud (your Mom’s Crazy ESL Buddy from the Lansing area)