I want to keep a book aside as the last book I’m going to read when I’m very, very old.
You want to save a book you want to read till you’re super old?
Accidents happen…
If you want to read a book, read the book. Don’t plan to read it in 20-60 years
Probably.
But idk… Reading a book that you planned to read like 60 years ago when you were much different seems cool to me
I reread Pratchett’s Night Watch every couple of years and it’s different every time. Ditto Nation.
Reading a book at 20, then again at 50, then again at 80 will hit very differently. I’m not yet 50 but I’m rereading books that already feel like an entirely new experience. The Hitchhiker trilogy is one example. I’m more ready to sympathize with Arthur than I was the first time around.
Allegedly Shakespeare said not to see King Lear until you’re old. It’s pretty brutal. I recommend it sooner.
I wouldn’t wait to read something I actually want to read, because life and death is unpredictable.
I would rather plan to reread a book at different stages of life and find out how much I’ve changed by how differently feel about the same story.
Or I’d (re)read something like House of Leaves, just because it’d be very funny to have that type of book be the thing that finally kills me.
My mother may have been a bitch, but she had this down pat - she re-read her favourite books once she hit 80, and then gave them to charity after.
It helped clear down the house a bit and she enjoyed them one last time.
She dropped dead randomly at 87 with zero warning (other than being old).
Irvyn Yalom - Staring at the Sun
Whatever book you remember reading first, read it again at the end.
Well… My first book was Harry Potter T-T
But I guess I could read the book I read after that series
I feel like that’s such a personal choice as to what you’d like your final thoughts to be. I, “funny” enough, was just talking to a friend with terminal cancer about what they’re reading yesterday. It was “The Once and Future King,” a childhood favorite. Nostolgia aside, they love the sweet tragedy of the story, the silly and earnest warmth of it.
For me, maybe something like the Doadejing or Siddhartha, something reassuring that life had been good and that a peaceful end is the best outcome to a well-lived life.
The far side comic collection
I’d read an encyclopedia of the history of my lifetime to remember things I might have forgotten.
That and a photo album of my life.
If you’re planning a suicide there are people out there to talk to:
https://therecover.com/suicide-hotline-numbers-by-country/
If not, don’t waste the book by waiting
Nahhh, I’m too much of a p*ssy for that
Personally I’d recommend the Quran. Although I wouldn’t recommend delaying reading it.
Yeah I don’t want it to be my last book, but I am planning on reading it someday.
If it’s a book, and it’s in 20-70 years from now, maybe Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. By then, those books will probably read as a history and you can marvel at Octavia Butler’s prescience.
Im going to deviate slightly. I’d say the last film I want to see is Synecodoche, NY. I hope that, on reflection, my life’s work is as grand as that of PSH’s character in the film.
I just hope that, despite the work, I get out more often.
Tuesdays with Morrie. It gives a great perspective on how to have a positive outlook on life, even in its final days!
Something lighthearted and not depressing. Anne of Green Gables
I’ve heard On the Beach by Nevil Shute is an interesting read. It’s definitely on my to read list for sometime in the future. If you’re already basically on death’s door and gonna be gone soon, there won’t be much time to get depressed over a depressing book about people in Australia awaiting radiation from nuclear world war slowly making it’s way over to the last habitable place on the planet.
Edit:
As for books I have read, Fourteen Days, apparently by a collaboration of many authors, including Margaret Atwood. The caviat is I got most way through but didn’t finish it in time before having to turn it back into the library. Follows a woman whose dad worked as basically a maintenance type person for those apartment buildings in New York. She ends up becoming one herself out of need for money while her dad stays in a care facility. COVID hits as she’s starting, so she’s in lockdown along with the other tenants. Throughout, they all start gathering on a rooftop every night ( even though they’re not supposed to ) as the main character records what happens to basically eventually put it into a journal from the person who had her job before her.
That is all I will say on it.
I don’t have a real recommendation, I just want to say that I think this is a bad idea; What if the highly recommended book turns out to be one you find mindnumbingly boring and/or stupid? I can see this working if it’s the last book in a series you already like, but otherwise it’s risky.
Read what you want, and don’t hesitate.
Also, phonebook.
