The Life Impossible

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

Matt Haig, Unknown

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9781838855574
• eBook ISBN:
  9781838855598
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

*THE MIDNIGHT TRAIN, Matt Haig's new novel from the world of The Midnight Library, is out now*


THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

'A beautiful novel full of life-affirming wonder and imagination' BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

'What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don't understand yet . . .'

When retired Maths teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.

Among the rugged hills and golden beaches Grace searches for answers about her friend's life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.

Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Also by Matt Haig
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Map
• Sob Story
• Apologies
• The Inability to Feel Pleasure
• Pineapples
• An Ongoing Situation
• .14159
• Conversations with the Dead
• The Tall Rock
• It Begins with A
• Salt
• Desolation
• The Pictures on the Wall
• The Olive Jar
• Satisfaction
• Necessity
• A Third Full
• Mathematics
• A New Theory of Infinity
• Santa Gertrudis
• The Woman Who Sold the Future
• The Yellow Flower
• The Knock at the Door
• La vida imposible
• Please Stay Away from Mr Ribas
• Anhedonia
• Hippy Market
• The Snake and the Goat
• Alberto
• Tomorrow at Midnight
• The Inescapable Loneliness of Grace Winters
• Broken Radios
• Glow
• A Boat Called No
• Nolletia chrysocomoides
• The Sudden Dark
• Light
• The Cloud and the Sphere
• Free
• Everything Was Gone
• Rising, Swirling, Spinning
• Knowing Someone’s Name Without Knowing How
• Spikes
• La Presencia
• Lucky Guess
• The Instructions
• The Infinite Hotel
• The Peculiarities
• The Infinite Pleasure of Orange Juice
• The Book
• Fleetwood Mac
• Watermelon in the Sun
• I Was Life
• Cat
• Lorry
• Lieke
• Larger Than Thought
• Impossible Life
• The Goat Incident
• The Lobsters
• The Scent of Alberto Ribas
• Particles of Light
• Church
• The Belief in More
• Mansions
• The Third Person
• The Falling Moon
• 1855
• Salvation
• The View from the Church Floor
• An Equation Without a Solution
• Wormhole
• What Christina Said on the Boat as the Wind Gently Blew Her Hair
• Grace Good-for-Nothing
• Horse
• Airport
• Protection
• The Closed Door
• Unsipped Juice
• The 52-Hertz Whale
• Marta and the Second Law of Thermodynamics
• A Fig
• Elvis Presley and the Broken Glass
• Mindfishing
• Heartbreaks and Hangovers
• Islands Don’t Exist
• El Pescador
• Art Butler
• Uncertain Quantities
• All the Clever Ideas Presently in Alberto’s Head
• Flyer
• A Purpose
• The Signal
• Disco Nap
• Someone I Recognised
• The Best Person I Ever Knew
• Perfect Imperfection
• The Waking Child
• The Brightness
• Grace Winters Plus Two
• The Workshop of the Forgetful Ones
• The Joy of Counting Without Counting
• Hermana
• Laurel
• Roulette
• The Turn and the River
• Contradictions
• A Lot to Take In
• The Miniature Bottle
• The Gathering
• A Bag of Sand
• Salacia
• The Beach of Truth
• The Signal Can Happen Now
• Alive
• The Fate We Make
• This Is Life
• Vive Por Mí
• Ashes
• I Happen
• Bluebird
• Blaze
• Acknowledgements
• Reading Questions