The #1 New York Times bestselling WORLDWIDE phenomenon
Winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction | A Good Morning America Book Club Pick | Independent (London) Ten Best Books of the Year
"A feel-good book guaranteed to lift your spirits."—The Washington Post
The dazzling reader-favorite about the choices that go into a life well lived, from the acclaimed author of How To Stop Time and The Comfort Book.
Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?
In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig's enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.
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"This was a thought provoking, philosophically whimsical tale of the regrets and decisions we make through life. This was beautifully narrated and I enjoyed it a lot. "
— Maggie R (4 out of 5 stars)
Haig’s latest (after the nonfiction collection Notes on a Nervous Planet, 2019) is a stunning contemporary story that explores the choices that make up a life, and the regrets that can stifle it. A compelling novel that will resonate with readers.
— Booklist (starred review)Charming...[Matt Haig] will reward readers who take this book off the shelf.
— Publisher's Weekly[The Midnight Library] will follow in the bestselling footsteps of Haig’s earlier books . . . Part Sliding Doors, part-philosophical quest, this is a moving novel with a powerful mental health message at its heart.
— Alice O’Keeffe, The BooksellerAn absorbing but comfortable read...a vision of limitless possibility, of new roads taken, of new lives lived, of a whole different world available to us somehow, somewhere, might be exactly what’s wanted in these troubled and troubling times.
— The New York TimesWhimsical.
— Washington Post, named one of the 15 Feel-Good Books Guaranteed to Lift Your SpiritsIncluded in best-of-year and year-end roundups by The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, New York Public Library, Amazon, Boston Globe, PureWow, St. Louis Public Radio, She Reads, Lit Hub, The Mary Sue, and more
An instant New York Times bestsellerWinner of the Goodreads Choice Award for FictionA GOOD MORNING AMERICA Book Club Pick!One of the LibraryReads 2020 Voter FavoritesIndependent (London) One of Ten Best Books of the Year
“A vision of limitless possibility, of new roads taken, of new lives lived, of a whole different world available to us somehow, somewhere.”
— New York Times“This brainy, captivating pleasure read feels like what you might get if TV’s The Good Place collided with Where’d You Go, Bernadette.”
— PeopleA highly original, thought-provoking novel...
— Independent (London)Just beautiful . . . Such a gorgeous, gorgeous book.
— Fearne Cotton, host of the BBC Radio 1 Chart ShowHaig is one of the most inspirational popular writers on mental health of our age and, in his latest novel, he has taken a clever, engaging concept and created a heart-warming story that offers wisdom in the same deceptively simple way as Mitch Albom's best tales.
— Independent (UK)British author Matt Haig is beloved in his home country, and he’s a champion of mental health, which makes him a great person to follow on Twitter. He’s best known for the novel How to Stop Time, but he has a new novel just out on September 29 called The Midnight Library, which sounds equally intriguing. In this library, Nora Seed finds endless books which contain different versions of the life she could have lived. This is a must-read for those of us given to endless what ifs.
— BookRiotWould we really make better choices if we could step back in time? Matt Haig’s thought-provoking, uplifting new book, The Midnight Library discusses just that, exploring our relationship with regret and what really makes a perfect life.
— Harper's Bazaar (UK)Nora’s life is burdened by regrets. Then she stumbles on a library with books that enable her to test out the lives she could have led, including as a glaciologist, Olympic swimmer, rock star, and more. Her discoveries ultimately prove life-affirming in Matt Haig’s dazzling fantasy.
— Christian Science MonitorAmazing and utterly beautiful, The Midnight Library is everything you'd expect from the genius storyteller who is Matt Haig.
— Joanna Cannon, author of The Trouble with Goats and SheepClever, emotional and thought-inspiring.
— Jenny Colgan, author of The Bookshop on the CornerAlthough I don’t read fiction as much as I used to—because I’m always writing fiction—during these sad and difficult days in 2020 I broke that rule because I needed to escape into other people’s fictional worlds. One of my favorite books of the year was "The Midnight Library" by Matt Haig, a powerful and uplifting story about regrets and the choices we make.
— Alice Hoffman, author of Magic Lessons and Practical MagicA charming book.
— Dolly Parton, award-winning singer-songwriterThanks to the storytelling chops of writer Matt Haig, The Midnight Library is an engaging read, full of gentle insights and soothing wisdom… This is a book about shedding regret by gaining perspective. It’s full of quirky plot lines, with glimpses of opportunities and potential in unexpected places and people.
— Psychology TodayThis brainy, captivating pleasure read feels like what you might get if TV’s The Good Place collided with Where’d You Go, Bernadette.
— PeopleA beautiful fable, an It’s a Wonderful Life for the modern age – impossibly timely when we are all stuck in a world we wish could be different.
— Jodi Picoult, author of My Sister's KeeperI can't describe how much his work means to me. So necessary...[Matt Haig is] the king of empathy.
— Jameela Jamil, actor and host of I Weigh with Jameela JamilThis book really makes you think all about our choices in life and that big question of “Where would I be if I had made a different choice?” It’s a book that definitely made me self-reflect.
— Millie Bobbie Brown actor and author of Nineteen StepsA brilliant premise and great fun.
— Daily Mail“Charming...a celebration of the ordinary: ordinary revelations, ordinary people, and the infinity of worlds seeded in ordinary choices.
— The Guardian" A book about every little decision and the consequences that follow. Gets you thinking about all the decisions you have made! "
— Mary, 5/5/2024Matt Haig writes fiction and nonfiction for children and adults, including four series, eleven stand-alone novels, novellas, short stories, and a memoir. His Shadow Forest, aka Samuel Blink and the Forbidden Forest, won the 2009 Blue Peter Book Award for Book of the Year.
Adrian Edmondson is well-known for his roles in The Young Ones, and Bottom, which he wrote with his long-term comedy partner, the late Rik Mayall. He recently starred in the BBC’s adaptation of War and Peace and won Celebrity Masterchef in 2013. His first adult novel, The Gobbler, was published in 1996. He has three daughters with his wife - actress, screenwriter and comedian Jennifer Saunders - and lives in London