The first book I’ve read in 2025 is “Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin. I didn’t know anything about this book when I bought it. I found it on the English language table in the fabulous Tranquebar bookshop in Copenhagen, and what convinced me to buy it was the blurb on the back, particularly the claim that it was a tale about “our need to connect; to be loved and to love”. However, as clearly displayed on the front cover, several million people had already bought a copy before I did, so, I guess I was a little late to the party. That doesn’t bother me, though.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was well written, engaged me from the very beginning, held my attention and pulled me in. Set in the US, focussed on three characters who create computer games and build a highly successful company, this isn’t a world that I know anything about. I’ve never been a computer game fan, and apart from some very, very early games, haven’t played any, but I didn’t feel out of my depth here at all. I think that’s mainly because there is no focus on detailed tech issues, but, rather on the ideas behind these games. It made me think about computer games more positively than I have done until now (although it hasn’t tempted me to go and play any!). I could see from the story how the experience of game worlds can actually help people to deal with reality, not simply, as I’d believed until now, just escape from it. There can be a power in distraction and escape, especially when someone is trying to recover from significant physical trauma. That’s something I haven’t really explored much even though I worked as a doctor for my whole career. I wonder what part such technology might play therapeutically in the future – and I don’t mean the current wave of data collection and emphasis on numbers and what can be measured. I mean more in the way of stimulating imagination, creativity and relationships.
There’s a particularly believable section of the book which involves a shooting. That felt spot on. It’s easy to see, in the increasingly polarised, judgemental world of America, in particular, that someone could become so enraged by something occurring in a computer game that they’d set off with guns to kill the creators.
The main characters are also very credible, and as the story follows them over many years, we get to experience intensely different phases of their relationships, from the times where all goes well between them, through the times where they drift apart, or even divided. And, as suggested, in that little blurb which caught my attention, it really is a story about the importance of loving and being loved.
A good start to the year.
Heroes Not Zombies 