THE
NOTEBOOK
THE
NOTEBOOK
Nicholas Sparks
WANER BOOKS A Time
Warner Company
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either theproduct of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance toactual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright ©1996 by Nicholas Sparks All rights reserved.
Warner Books, Inc., 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
A Time Warner Company
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing: October 1996
10 9 8 7 6 $ 4 3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sparks,Nicholas.
The notebook / Nicholas Sparks. p.
cm.
ISBN 0-446-52080-2
1. Man-woman relationships--North Carolina--Fiction. 2. Oral reading--Fiction. 3.
Aged--Fiction. I. Title. PS3569.P363N68 1996
813'.54--dc2096-33815CIP
Book design and composition by L & G McRee
This book is dedicated with love to Cathy, my wife and
my friend.
Acknowledgments
This story is what it is today because of two special people, and I would like tothank them for everything they've done.
To Theresa Park, the agent who plucked me from obscurity. Thank you for yourkindness,your patience, and the many hours you have spent working with me.
I will be forever grateful for everything you've done.
To Jamie Raab , my editor. Thank you for your wisdom , your humor , and yourgood-hearted nature. You made this a wonderful experience for me, and I'm gladto call you my Friend.
THE NOTEBOOK
Electronic Copy Is Edited By MAZ
Egypt - 2005
Miracles
Who am I? And how, I wonder, will this story end?
The sun has come up and I am sitting by a window that is foggy with the breath of alife,,,. gone by. I'm a sight this morning: two shirts,heavy pants, a scarf wrapped twicearound my neck and tucked into a thick sweater knitted by my daughter thirtybirthdays ago. The thermostat in my room is set as high as it will go , and a smallerspace heater sits directly behind me. It clicks and groans and spews hot air like a fairy-tale dragon , and still my body shivers with a cold that will never go away, a coldthat has been eighty years in the making.
Eighty years, I think sometimes, and despite my own acceptance of my age, it stillamazes me that I haven't been warm since George Bush was president.
I wonder if this is how it is for everyone my age.
My life ? It isn't easy to explain . It has not been the rip‐roaring spectacular Ifancied it would be , but neither have I burrowed around with the gophers.
I suppose it has most resembled a blue‐chip stock: fairly stable , more upsthan downs , and gradually trending upward over time . A good buy , a luckyBuy , and I've learned that not everyone can say this about his life . But donot be misled . I am nothing special ; of this I am sure . I am a common manwith common thoughts , and I've led a common life . There are no monumentsDedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten,but I've loved anotherwith all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.
The romantics would call this a love story , the cynics would call it a tragedy. Inmy mind it's a little bit of both , and no matter how you choose to view it in the end,it does not change the fact that it involves a great deal of my life and the pathI've chosen to follow . I have no complaints about my path and the places it has taken
