What do you feel is the central theme of the book?

LOVE. Love of family and love of experiences found in a good book. Great love for both. Solid maturity in facing the inevitable using a tool (reading) to show love and continue experiencing a satisfactory life while it lasts.

The experience here was itself a "good ending".

This book reinforces the importance of having quality time with a loved one for whom there is a definite final goodbye looming. Spending time with the loved one is very important. Those will be memories you will cherish. This book also shows that finding a common interest that is worthwhile and interesting (books!!) to talk about in this final stage of a loved one's life is valuable to all involved.

Love transcends death. Quoting St. Paul's letter to Corinthians, "Faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

One of the central themes of the book seems to be the power of books to connect people and how particularly profound these connections can be during times of great stress.

Love and the capacity of literature to help you through life's darkest situations. Personally, books have helped me stay connected to many in my life, but they have really helped with my teenage sons and nephews. They are always amazed when I ask "What are you reading?" and I either have read the book or know the story. Talking about books has given us many great conversations and also provides a forum to discuss some of life's most difficult issues (and the occasional embarassing question!).

Find a way to connect with each loved one on his/her level, as Mary Anne did. Make the most of each day.

I think there are several themes, messages to be taken from this powerful book. Certainly the importance of family and the power of books are important messages. The importance of acceptance and living in the moment were also important to me.

Shared experiences deepen the bond.
Will and his mother shared books, exchanged books and sometimes changed how the other experienced the book. Not unlike people who travel comparing their voyage--each seeing a place the same or differently.

I agree with all posted comments. Books have always been important to me. The premise that a son could be close to his mom during this most difficult of times by discussing books was Intriging to me.

since books had been very imortant to her all her life they were very important to the very end. also she instilled this in her son whom she loved very much.he was a writer so they had something in common to talk about rather than her illness .

Communication between people is so necessary and so difficult to do on more than a superficial level. Books can be a way to enter into those conversations in a non-threatening way, a way to share emotions when one isn't comfortable doing it openly.

I'm only about a third of the way through the book, but it seems to me that communication is the main theme of this book, and the means of communication for Will and his mother, Mary Anne, is literature. In their "book club" discussions, their commonality is a shared love of books. It's easy for them to converse about the books they each love. Of course, entangled in the talks about the characters in their books are their own emotions, Will's and MaryAnne's, that is. Exposing their own feelings and fears directly would make them vulnerable. It's easier to talk about the feelings, hopes, dreams, etc. of fictional characters.

I wonder, though. It seems to me that Mary Anne would be able to talk openly to Will. Perhaps, she recognizes that Will needs the book club in order to communicate his feelings to her.