The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Hi, Richard, Linda and my classmates:

Several weeks ago I ran into a novel named The Five People You Meet in Heaven in the Asian Branch of Oakland Public Library. The book is written by Mitch Albom, the author of the number one New York Times bestseller Tuesday with Morrie, I was absorbed in it at the first glance. The edition of the book I got from the Oakland Library was published in Hong Kong in Traditional Chinese. As I read more and more, I was deeply moved and attracted to this wise and imaginative book. So I returned to the library and borrowed three other editions of this novel from two different branches of the Oakland Public Library - the English edition, the simplified Chinese edition, and the Audio Book edition. Maybe editions in Spanish or other languages that I don’t understand are also available. In 2004, The Five People You Meet in Heaven was adapted to a TV movie, but it is a pity that I haven’t found the DVD yet.

I am glad and honored to share this lovely story with every one of you. When I set out to write a summary of the novel to recommend the amazing book, I found a lot of information about the novel posted on web. I collected some of the brilliant introductions and posted them here. I hope you enjoy and love the story.

About the book

Eddie is a grizzled war veteran who feels trapped in a meaningless life of fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. As the park has changed over the years -- from the Loop-the-Loop to the Pipeline Plunge -- so, too, has Eddie changed, from optimistic youth to embittered old age, His days are a dull routine of work, loneliness, and regret.

Then, on his 83rd birthday, Eddie dies in a tragic accident, trying to save a little girl from a falling cart. With his final breath, he feels two small hands in his -- and then nothing. 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.

One by one, Eddie's five people illuminate the unseen connections of his earthly life. 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 success or a devastating failure? The answer, which comes from the most unlikely of sources, is as inspirational as a glimpse of heaven itself.

In The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom gives us an astoundingly original story that will change everything you've ever thought about the afterlife -- and the meaning of our lives here on earth. With a timeless tale, appealing to all, this is a book that readers of fine fiction, and those who loved Tuesdays with Morrie, will treasure.

Click here to read the beginning of The Five People You Meet in Heaven.