| |

Book Discoveries: Tuesdays with Morrie

Tuesdays with Morrie
Mitch Albom

I don’t know what took me so long to read Tuesdays with Morrie.   It’s famous and recommended constantly, but I somehow let it go by the wayside for years.  Finally, I got my hands on a copy, and it was horse-blinders until I was finished with it.  I read the whole book in a day: I started it after the morning meeting – I read it between classes – and then I sped home so I could finish it in my apartment.  It took hold of me, as it seems to have done with the other 11-million-plus people who have bought it.   I wondered, what could all of us millions of readers find in this little book that is so compelling?  I found the answers in both the ying and the yang – we find life in the face of death.

The book chronicles the Tuesday conversations between its author, Mitch Albom, and his college sociology professor Morrie Schwartz.  After graduation, Albom promises Schwartz he will keep in touch, but his life takes him in other directions, from poor pianist to wealthy sports writer.  Then, out of the blue, sixteen years after graduating, Albom finds himself staring at his old professor on the TV.  Morrie had been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS) and is slowly dying.  This becomes the catalyst for their reunion, and what follows is chronicled with compassionate prose by Albom in this book.

The two meet every Tuesday afternoon to discuss various themes of life, from love to compassion to forgiveness and ultimately, to death.  I was struck particularly with the honest and humble nature of the entire book.  I didn’t once find myself far removed from the pain or the lessons – it was written to be accepted, and it does a marvelous job of that. There were chapters that pulled my heart strings, and others that made me crinkle my nose and laugh.

If you’re feeling homesick or a little lost these days, I think you should brave the book and see what it has to offer you.  There is no harm in getting a dose of memoir-ific literature, right?  It feels good to be reminded about some of the small and important facts in life and the lessons we find betwixt them.

Happy reading!

P.S. Mitch Albom also wrote another non-fiction book titled Have a Little Faith. AND – if neither of these novels makes you cry, re-evaluate your life, or want to hug every person you’ve ever loved, then you can also pick up Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture.  All three of these books have something in common besides dealing with the powerful inertia of living and subsequently, dying – they are all on my “read-in-a-day” list.  Such is the power of a well-written memoir.

Similar Posts