Recently I finished reading Death by Living: Life is Meant to be Spent by N. D. Wilson. According to the publisher, “bestselling author N.D. Wilson reminds each of us that to truly live we must recognize that we are dying. Every second we create more of our past—more decisions, more breathing, more love and more loathing, all of it slides by into the gone as we race to grab at more moments, at more memories made and already fading.”
I'll be really honest - I'm still not entirely sure what I thought of this book. Parts of it I really enjoyed, while some parts left me scratching my head, wondering what I was missing here. My initial thoughts on what a book with this title would be like were completely wrong. I was expecting something of a self-help/encouragement along the road of life for people, like myself, who tend to be more conservative in our actions. What this book actually turned out to be was more of a memoir of the author's generations past and his reflections on his own young family. Honestly, the genealogist in me found the best parts of this book to be the stories of his grandparents. They grew up in a time very different from my own and lived lives that were worthy of being shared. I loved reading them and wished the book had more of them.
All in all, I think maybe my own preconceived notions about what this book would be clouded my thoughts on what it actually was.