#70 -- Replay by Ken Grimwood

From the Publisher
Jeff Winston, forty-three, didn’t know he was a replayer until he died and woke up twenty-five years younger in his college dorm room; he lived another life. And died again. And lived again and died again – in a continuous twenty-five-year cycle—each time starting from scratch at the age of eighteen to reclaim lost loves, remedy past mistakes, or make a fortune in the stock market. A novel of gripping adventure, romance, and fascinating speculation on the nature of time, Replay asks the question: “What if you could live your life over again?”

My Opinion

This book came highly recommended and I was not disappointed.

Jeff Winston is a 43 year old man who dies of a sudden heart attack, to wake up moments later as his 18 year old self with all of his memories of his previous life, including his painful death, intact. As it becomes obvious to him that he has his entire life to live over again he ponders the how & why of what has happened. He uses his knowledge of the future to place some well timed bets that make him wealthy and he lives his life over again, much differently than the first time. Right up to that moment 43 years later when he dies again, and wakes up again as his 18 year old self.

As he is faced with the possibility of a never ending cycle of lives he ponders those questions that we have all faced. If you had it all to do over again with the knowledge of what was going to happen how would you do it. Would you change your life? Would you try to stop tragedies that you know the world was going to face?

During his second or third cycle of life he encounters another person who replays, Pamela. As they meet and compare notes about there lives and the puzzle of their replays, they begin to fall in love.
They develop an enduring love that carries them through a cycle to be remembered and sought out in the next cycle. Each cycle is different. They use their knowledge of the future to try to affect change, but it is not always successful.

Unfortunately in their search for answers they become aware that their cycles are becoming shorter each time. Before they know it they are losing years of the cycle and coming back later and later into their lives. What will happen when they have no more time left between cycles? When they face that last cycle that they will not return from?

It is a very thought provoking book. What would you do if you could do it all over again?

This is a great video about this book. Take a few moments to watch it --