The Post-Birthday World

Such a powerful book! It's all about the danger of failing to choose, but presented in such a way that the lesson seeps in slowly. Perhaps an ultimate example of "show, don't tell."

I first read it during a difficult season in life where I too felt like I was facing two mutually exclusive options. Each of them foretold a loss and made me sad to contemplate the absence of the other. I then went back to the book a few years later for a second reading and found it just as powerful but less sad—perhaps because I'd improved in… show more.

We all have our own private "what if" moments and personal alternate histories. The party invites we wisely declined, the job offer we foolishly accepted, and—above all, I suspect for many of us—the person we did or didn't kiss. Irina, a successful book illustrator in a long-term relationship with a caring if somewhat boring Lawrence, faces such a crossroads when she encounters the laddish but glamorous professional snooker player Ramsey. Which way does she go? The answer, through the book's following alternate chapters, is both. We get to examine the trails, tribulations, and excitements that run through these alternate relationships… show more.