Hope? Of what? My future? The future of mankind? Relief of my IBS?
Pffffff.
Gonna go with Life After Life. It relieved some of my crushing fear of Death when I was a kid. (More on the eclectic book choices of my youth can be found here). My own death and my parents' death and everybody I loved was going to DIE! I don't know if religious little girls have an easier time with the concept of Death, with Heaven in their future, but I can tell you it wasn't easy for this agnostic one. Well, at least I didn't have to believe in Hell and sin and all of that, so that was the upside of that upbringing.
This book made me have hope that I would not spend eternity rotting in a coffin, fully conscious of the process. (Still, I'm getting cremated, just in case.)
Maybe I am only remembering this because my 10 year old has woken me up twice this month, crying, because everybody he loves is going to die. This irritates my husband, who just wants to go the fuck back to sleep, and my 14 year old has never seemed to have gone through this phase, but it breaks my heart because I remember how horrendously scary a concept Death is when you're 10 and it's dark out and you're all by yourself staring at the ceiling of your bedroom.
I think I'll order a copy of this book for him. Maybe it helps him too.