From the author of the best-selling and beloved The End of Your Life Book Club - a wonderfully engaging new book: both a celebration of reading in general and an impassioned recommendation of specific books that can help guide us through our daily lives.

'I'm on a search and have been all my life: to find books to help me make sense of the world, to help me become a better person, to help me get my head around the big questions that I have, and figure out the answers to some of the small ones while I'm at it' Will Schwalbe

'I've always believed that everything you need to know you can find in a book', writes Will Schwalbe in his introduction to this thought-provoking, heart-felt, and often inspiring new book about books.
In each chapter he makes clear the ways in which a particular book has helped to shape how he leads his own life and the ways in which it might help to shape ours. He talks about what brought him to each book - or vice versa; the people in his life he associates each book with; how each has led him to other books; how each is part of his understanding of himself in the world.
And he relates each book to a question of our daily lives, for example: Melville's Bartelby, the Scrivener speaks to quitting; 1984 to disconnecting from our electronics; James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room to the power of connecting with people face to face; Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea to taking time to recharge; Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird to being sensitive to the surrounding world; The Little Prince to finding friends; Elie Wiesel's Night to choosing to do something in the face of injustice; Paula Hawkins's The Girl on the Train to trusting.
Here, too, are books by Dickens, Daphne Du Maurier, Murakami, Edna Lewis, E.B. White and Hanya Yanagihara, among many others. A treasure of a book for everyone who loves books, loves reading, and loves to hear the answer to the question: 'What have you been reading lately?'

In an age where we can Google the answer to everything, Will Schwalbe has always believed that the answer to everything can actually be found in a book if we just slow down enough to find out and then take the time to think about it and share with others. Books for Living is a wide ranging exploration of what books can teach us in the modern age.

Books covered include:
David Copperfield
Rebecca
Stuart Little
The Importance of Living
Giovanni's Room
Bird by Bird

'I used to say that the greatest gift you could ever give anyone is a book. But I don't say that anymore because I no longer think it's true. I now say that a book is the second greatest gift. I've come to believe that the greatest gift you can give anyone is to take the time to talk with someone about a book you've shared. A book is a great gift; the gift of your interest and attention is even greater' Will Schwalbe