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Last week, I celebrated the 300th anniversary of the church building for St. Martin-in-the-Fields — the church next to Trafalgar Square in London.

Book: The Midnight Train by Matt Haig
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Viking
Publication date: 2026

Source: E-book borrowed from the library

Summary: Wilbur Budd suffered a devastating loss as a young man, but he also had some very lucky encounters early in life. An encounter with Agnes Bagdale led him to his career as a bookshop owner. An encounter with Maggie resulted in the love of his life.

Unfortunately, by the time he died, Wilbur had turned his love of reading into an obsession with making it big in the book business, losing the love of his life somewhere along the way.

When he dies, he boards the Midnight Train which takes him on a journey to see what he had and how he lost it.

Thoughts: The Midnight Train is clearly a follow-up to The Midnight Library, but not exactly a sequel. Here’s how the author describes it in the Acknowledgments at the end of the book:

Obviously this isn’t a sequel to The Midnight Library, in any traditional sense. But conceptually, it follows on. The Midnight Library was a library between life and death. This is a train through life after death. And now I feel both novels are having a heated debate with each other about how best to live.

I like the idea of novels debating. I’m not sure that I felt that debate. For me, it was more that there are lots of ways for us to live life, and mess up life, and get ourselves back on track again — even if it wasn’t the track that we thought we wanted. An illumination of complexity.

Both of these novels are standalone, but if you’re intrigued, you can experience them in the same way that those of us who loved The Midnight Library did by reading that first. Nora Seed, the main character from the first book makes a cameo appearance in the second which is fun to spot (and get a little update on her experience after the end of her story).

Although the first book has ‘library’ in the title, the second book gives us more of a glimpse into the life of a book lover, since that is Wilbur’s initial way of engaging in the world.

Appeal: The Midnight Train is great for readers looking for an escape but who like to come away from a reading experience with some food for thought that is applicable to real life.

Have you read this book? What did you think?

Did anyone read the audio of this book? I went audio for The Midnight Library but read this one as an e-book so I’m curious what the listening experience was like.