Mixed feelings.

I downloaded “I See You’ve Called in Dead” (2025) for the intriguing premise:

Obituary writer Bud Stanley is semi-depressed. One night he gets drunk and posts his own obituary.

His company assumes he is dead and removes him from their employees list.

Turning up at work, the computer won’t let them fire Bud because he’s technically dead in their system. 😀

Catch-22.

I love it.

And there is a lot of humour. I laughed out loud more than once.

Thurber Prize-winner and New York Times bestselling author John Kenney tells a funny, touching story about life and death, about the search for meaning, about finding and never letting go of the preciousness of life.

Suspended from work, Bud meets a woman and they start attending wakes and funerals of strangers.

There are some interesting philosophical discussions about the meaning of life. Important.

Two additional characters really appeal: Leo, a neighbour’s son, and Bud’s best friend Tim.

So … plenty of good content. But ultimately I’m not sure I can call this book a success. I nearly quit several times.

Funny. Smart.

Very philosophical. Life. Love. Destiny vs free will.

A very different kind of book.

Here One Moment (2024)

The plane is jam-packed. Every seat is taken. So of course the flight is delayed!

Flight attendant Allegra Patel likes her job—she’s generally happy with her life, even if she can’t figure out why she hooks up with a man she barely speaks to—but today is her twenty-eighth birthday. She can think of plenty of things she’d rather be doing than placating a bunch of grumpy passengers.
 
There’s the well-dressed man in seat 4C who is compulsively checking his watch, desperate not to miss his eleven-year-old daughter’s musical. Further back, a mother of two is frantically trying to keep her toddler entertained and her infant son quiet. How did she ever think being a stay-at-home mom would be easier than being a lawyer? Ethan is lost in thought; he’s flying back from his first funeral. A young couple has just gotten married; she’s still wearing her wedding dress. An emergency room nurse is looking forward to traveling the world once she retires in a few years, it’s going to be so much fun! If they ever get off the tarmac. . . .
 
Suddenly a woman none of them know stands up. She makes predictions about how and when everyone on board will die. … 

How would you live your life if you thought you knew how it would end? Would you love who you love or try to love someone else? Would you stay married? Would you stop drinking? Would you call up your ex-best friend you haven’t spoken to in years? Would you quit your job?

For me it was less a plot than a series of slices of life. The characters unrelated — other than their reactions to what happened on the plane.

At times I found the book long.

Still — it’s unique. And it will make you consider your own life.

Are YOU living each day as if you already know the year of your death?

related – Guardian – Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty review – interesting premise, disappointing result

Though I’ve never been much of a fan of poetry, one that frequently comes to mind is Ozymandias.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart.^[d] Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

— Percy Shelley, “Ozymandias”, 1819 edition

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