The Cephalopod Coffeehouse - The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and how cats can really fuck things up

Welcome to another edition of the Cephalopd Coffeehouse. The idea is simple: on the last Friday of each month, post about the best book you've finished over the past month while visiting other bloggers doing the same.  In this way, we'll all have the opportunity to share our thoughts with other enthusiastic readers.

This month I'm going to tell about The First Fiftten Lives of Harry August by Claire North

 Before I tell how much I loved this book, I first have to tell you why I'm so late getting this post up. Last night I was writing merrily away and took a short bathroom break. When I returned to my laptop, I found my cat, Mel, in my chair and a bunch of gobbledygook on my screen. I managed to delete it all - with some difficulty I might add - and then went to write this post. Imagine my dismay upon discovering my key board no longer worked.

Of course, I knew instantly that in addition to writing a bunch shite in my document, Mel had also pressed one of those hot keys that do things like turn your screen upside down (yes, this has happened to me - only I did it by accident and it took me forever to figure out how to fix it!!!). Which is fine as long as you're the one who hit the hot key, cuz then you know how to change everything back. Only I had no idea which key, or combination thereof, Mel pressed to make the keyboard non functional. I was almost going to restart my computer when I realized if I did I'd have no way of entering my password.

So I called my brother J (thank God he answered and thank God my mouse still worked) and he did a google search for 'keyboard not working.' This did not particularly help so he tried adding the words 'cat stepped on my key board.' Immediately a bunch of answer popped up. Imagine that.

It took a few tries but finally he found the solution by going into keyboard settings and finding the filter box(whatever the heck that is) checked off which shouldn't have been. Apparently there's a hot key for that and my little Mel managed to find it.

Bad Cat!

Anyway, I unchecked the box and my world was right again but it was too late to write this post. Hence my tardiness. Nevertheless, I am here now, and I can honestly say that I give The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August 5 stars. 

I loved this book. Why? Because it's about one of my favorite subjects, living your life over. That's what Harry August gets to do.

His first life is unremarkable.He's born in the early part of the 20th century, grows up, fights in the war, gets married and dies having lived a pretty good life more or less. It's his second life when things get interesting. When Harry is around 7 or 8, he begins to remember his last life and is overwhelmed by not only the memories but the knowledge he suddenly possesses. He ends up being committed to an institution for the insane and throws himself out a window. His third life goes a little better but I'm not going to tell you any more because you should really read this book. It's a little like Groundhog Day except Harry keeps living his whole life over and over.

I think I especially love this book because it uses a theory I have long considered. What if the Big Bang has happened over and over. Bang, universe born, expands and then I don't know, pops and then everything resets. It's quite possible that we are all living the same lives over and over like Harry. Now imagine if that were true. What would you do with your next life?