Matilda “Tilly” Nightingale has lost her love for reading. Her husband, Joe, dies from cancer only a few months after they are married. Tilly is faced with navigating life without him sooner than she ever could have predicted. One day, she gets a message from her local bookshop that an order is ready for pickup. Tilly does not recall ordering any books. As it turns out, when Joe learned that he wouldn’t have much longer to live, he selected 12 books for her – one to open a month. Each book is accompanied by a letter from Joe reminding her of his favorite memories of the two of them and how there’s more living she has to do. Yes, the premise is devastating! Grab your tissue box! For me, books about books can veer into two directions: truly admirable or poorly executed. “This Book Made Me Think of You” by Libby Page belongs in the former category. It checks off all of my boxes for crafting an inspiring narrative the reader will remember fondly for years.
The novel is split into 12 parts, each centered around the book Tilly gets each month. It was astounding to see Haruki Murakami’s “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” as one of the gifts. This is a memoir in which Murakami reflects on his running routine and how that influences his craft. Other fiction I have read that centers books avoid nonfiction, possibly due to the idea that readers won’t be interested in those subjects. I’m more of a fiction reader, but have found relatability in memoirs that can inspire me to pick up a hobby or view life in a different way. Some other notable and surprising books mentioned: “Delia’s Complete How to Cook” by Delia Smith, “The Poetry Pharmacy: Tried-and-True Prescriptions for the Mind, Heart and Soul” by William Sieghart and “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter” by Magareta Magnusson. If you haven’t heard of these, thank “This Book Made Me Think of You” for shining a spotlight on them.
The first book Tilly gets is the one that kick-started her love for the written word as a child: “Matilda” by Roald Dahl. Joe writes in his first letter, “For as long as I’ve known you (and long before that) you’ve been a reader. It’s who you are. You need books … And I suspect you need them now more than ever.” So when Tilly picks up that first book about a “little girl who shares her name and who loves to read, the world beyond the pages of the book disappears.” Every reader can remember the one book that began their bookish journey. Mine was “A Monster Calls” by Patrick Ness. In it, a little boy processes his mother’s decline in health due to cancer and a treelike monster seeks the truth from him. I am due for a reread. Rereading is a powerful tool. One finds new discoveries within the pages and learns the ways they have grown and changed. It’s fitting that as Tilly rereads “Matilda,” she is reminded that her love for books has not disappeared. In the months after Joe’s diagnosis, she couldn’t pick up a single novel, but she flies through “Matilda” in one sitting. Can we take a moment to relish in these parallels?
“This Book Made Me Think of You” focuses primarily on Tilly, but we are also shown glimpses into the life of bookseller and bookstore owner, Alfie. It would not be a book about books without a bookseller. Alfie enters the narrative as the owner of Book Lane, the bookstore where Joe left the 12 books. We see Alfie’s struggles to maintain a steady business with the rise of social media and other trends. He likes to keep his bookstore more offline and local. His job is to sell books, he says. This “grumpy/sunshine” trope that plays out between Alfie and Tilly is not unique to this novel, by any means, but their personality pairing is more subtle than you might find in your standard romance novel.
As Tilly visits the bookstore more than once a month throughout the year, they connect over the books she opens. Alfie is processing his own grief from the death of his father from a heart attack. As she describes her experiences, he finds commonality and new horizons. My favorite moment is when he helps Tilly put up a tent for her upcoming camping trip. There is mutual encouragement and influence between the two, and it’s amazing to see his progression from moody and broody to caring and determined to make his bookstore more than just a shop.
This is a story about confronting difficult obstacles and weaving them into one’s outlooks on life. Tilly finds her way back to joy in reading, trains to run a marathon for the first time (inspired by Murakami’s memoir), forgives herself and those closest to her – a sister and former best friend – and learns to love again. We see her progression as she quits a job that was dragging her down, takes a trip to Bali (which Joe gifts her, along with “Beach Read” by Emily Henry) and gains the courage to clear out his desk even though she wishes things could stay the same forever. The story is an embodiment of skepticism, triumph, dark days, spontaneity, care and an exorbitant amount of love.
Page has considered all kinds of factors when it comes to how time heals wounds and what time can never fix. “This Book Made Me Think of You” is not telling the reader that one must move on entirely when grieving a person that meant so much to them. There are joys in life that are still meant to be had, and dark days will forever be present. I recommend that this book be read in two long reading sessions or savored slowly where you read each of the 12 parts during the months of a year, especially if you are grieving yourself. Its pacing should feel slower than one would expect, but the chapter lengths make the transitions sharp and succinct. Its impact holds weight all the way through to the end.
A version of this story appeared originally on the Porter Square Review of Books. Buy “This Book Made Me Think of You” from Porter Square Books.
