The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Softcover

MITCH ALBOM

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0751536822 ISBN 13: 9780751536829

Publisher: TIME WARNER PAPERBACKS, 2004

Synopsis

Language:Chinese.Paperback. Pub Date: 2014-6-1 Publisher: little brown From the author of the phenomenal number one bestseller TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE. comes this enchanting. beautifully written novel that explores a mystery only heaven can unfold Eddie is a grizzled war veteran who. feels trapped in the toil of his father before him. fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. Then he dies in a tragic accident. trying to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakens in the afterlife. where he learns that heaven is not a lush Garden of Eden. but a place where your earthly life is explained to you by five people who were in it. These people may have been loved ones or distant strangers. Yet each of them changed your path forever. As the story builds to its stunning conclusion. Eddie desperately seeks redemption in the still-unknown last act of his life. Was it a heroic succes...

About this title

Review

Part melodrama and part parable, Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven weaves together three stories, all told about the same man: 83-year-old Eddie, the head maintenance person at Ruby Point Amusement Park. As the novel opens, readers are told that Eddie, unsuspecting, is only minutes away from death as he goes about his typical business at the park. Albom then traces Eddie's world through his tragic final moments, his funeral, and the ensuing days as friends clean out his apartment and adjust to life without him. In alternating sections, Albom flashes back to Eddie's birthdays, telling his life story as a kind of progress report over candles and cake each year. And in the third and last thread of the novel, Albom follows Eddie into heaven where the maintenance man sequentially encounters five pivotal figures from his life (a la A Christmas Carol). Each person has been waiting for him in heaven, and, as Albom reveals, each life (and death) was woven into Eddie's own in ways he never suspected. Each soul has a story to tell, a secret to reveal, and a lesson to share. Through them Eddie understands the meaning of his own life even as his arrival brings closure to theirs.

Albom takes a big risk with the novel; such a story can easily veer into the saccharine and preachy, and this one does in moments. But, for the most part, Albom's telling remains poignant and is occasionally profound. Even with its flaws, The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a small, pure, and simple book that will find good company on a shelf next to It's A Wonderful Life. --Patrick O'Kelley

About the Author

Mitch Albom is the author of the #1 international bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie. A nationally syndicated columnist for the Detroit Free Press and a nationally syndicated radio host of his own show, Albom has also been named the top sports columnist in the nation 13 times by the Associated Press Sports Editors of America -- the highest honor in his field. He is the founder of The Dream Fund, a charity that helps underprivileged youth study art, and of A Time to Help, a volunteer program. Albom serves on the boards of numerous charities. He lives with his wife in Michigan.

About this edition

• Publisher: TIME WARNER PAPERBACKS
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0751536822
• ISBN 13: 9780751536829
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 240