The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

This book was so beautifully written! I wish more people knew about this book, as I’ve never seen it discussed before. The beginning was a bit slow with a lot of background information, but the story picks up about halfway through and I couldn’t put it down. - Harry August lives a normal life until he dies. Then he does it all over again. And again and again. Centuries of life, he discovers that he is a member of the Cronus Club- a group of people who are reborn and can remember their past lives. The members are called ‘kalachakras’. But Henry is a bit different, he is a ‘nmuemonic’- which means while the memories of other kalachakras may fade after many lives, Harry remembers every detail from every single life he has lived. A thing to note- nmuemonics are rare. Rules of the Cronus Club- don’t kill one of our own, don’t tell anyone where you were born (if they are your enemy, they will abort you in the womb in your next life), and don’t do anything to change the course of the future. On his deathbed in an early life, Harry is visited by a young girl who comes bearing a warning message. She says that the world is ending at an alarming pace, that someone is doing something to speed up the end, and she asks for Dr. August’s help. Harry August spends his next few lives trying to figure out who is behind the early onset of the end of the world- he searches for historical events that are occurring earlier, inventions that should not yet have been invented. All of this leads him to a man named Vincent Rankis, who he befriends. I won’t spoil the ending, or last half of the book, but the turbulent relationship between Vincent and Harry is what carries the rest of the book. There are flashbacks to parts of lives that Harry has lived- a monk, a professor, a heroin addict, a soldier, a doctor- but those are viewed in retrospect and reminisced on as lessons. The book explores the ‘what if’ question of parallel universes, quantum physics, and just ethical and moral dilemmas in g

dNFed