The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Posted on Saturday, December 26th, 2009 at 2:40 am
- ISBN13: 9780786868711
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Plot Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him, as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It’s a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie’s five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his “meaningless” life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: “Why was I here?” Personal Details Collection Status In Collection Index 10 Read It Yes Links Amazon US Product Details LoC Classification PS3601.L335F59 2003 Dewey 813/.6Amazon.com 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
I read through the book and found it to be predictable and amusing in a strained kind of way. Why strained? Because it gave me further insight into the gullibility of people who want something far too badly, whereas any rational consideration of an alternative simply scares the hell out of them.
Ahh Heaven, the ULTIMATE Entitlement program. What motivates Jesus to pay for it all? Believe me when I tell you it’s gonna cost him,… big time. If you want to heap infinite riches and pleasures on someone then you’re likely to get very little return on your investment, even if you are god. Don’t you suppose that he’d want a little more than belief and praise for all these good digs? After all, it’s not like you’d have “earned” this “ripe for the pick’n” winning lotto ticket of the sky.
Cotton candy, corns dogs, orgies, Pie! Mmmmm, heaven! (Halleluiah now). Just don’t think that the heaven police (and there has to be one) won’t kick you right out of the deluxe apartment in the sky and into the ole “lake `o fire” if you cross over the line for some of the things you’re bound to be tempted to do. You’re only human. So be good, for goodness sake, cause Saint Nick’s coming. After all, “you get it your way”, every time, all the time, for all time, in heaven, right up until you’re uncovered (outed?) for being more like the bulk of humanity that didn’t qualify for the program.
People have such a hunger not to die, this is true. What else is true? Probably not your fantasies. Which is actually why they call them,… fantasies.
So what’s the afterlife like? Well it may not be just the way the Jesus Industry sells it. Here’s a hint. You’ve probably already experienced it. Remember that exceptionally vast stretch of time before you were born? No? Well, it could be a lot like that. Zip.
Or, perhaps it could be something like your essence, a drop plopped into the ocean of all universal essence, which exceeds any religious imaginings by countless magnitudes of oceans, including all essences the religious would find alien and unacceptable on account of it being,.. alien, as (I hate to break it to you) your wee world is not the center of the universe, let alone your modest galaxy.
Sorry to rain on your irrational and unstoppable craving for Epcot in the sky. No doubt you’d have expected perfect weather ALL the time too. Well, Happy Reality!
Rating: 1 / 5
A typical American ‘feel good’ book. This book is definitely a must read for anyone who still holds on to the belief that people are generally good and that there is no greed in this capitalist world. It’s a way of keeping the wool over their eyes for just a little longer. Why not snuggle down to this book while drinking your mulled wine at Christmas in front of an open fire.
What most people fail to realise is that there is no impirical evidence of the existence of heaven. It a tool devised by religious institutions as a form of control. This book (probably un-wittingly) furthers the religious cause by linking the concept of heaven to the daily routine of life.
There is no such thing as heaven and your life has no meaning – get over it!
Rating: 1 / 5
I was born in 1940. I know the war years. I would think that the five people I would meet are from the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.
I guess that a series on tv is coming up. My parents lived through the 2nd world war years. I find these stories trite and boring. I know better ones from the people who were there. The years of the cold war, the Korean war, the Bay of Pigs, etc., how can this book be socially relevant? I did not buy this book.
Rating: 1 / 5
This book is hackneyed pseudo-religious born again pulp, sprinkled
with two-bit sentimental sap-lines. This is a book for the illiterate herd. You WANT a REAL book about travels in heaven and hell…
Read the Divine Comedy. If you want trash sap, here is a great mindless “sweet” book for you. Gob bless you herd-minded readers, may peace be with your carboard bookshelf.
Rating: 1 / 5
I am wondering where to begin…I am almost speechless. Alas, I am “almost” speechless.
An open letter to Mr. Mitch Albom – by H.G. Wells
Mr. Albom,
I am disgusted and insulted that you call yourself a gentleman and an author! This text is a beastly, black mark on the world of novelling! Clearly, Mr. Albom, you have delusions of adequacy.
Earlier this evening, while out for my walk, I passed a small shop selling your (so-called) book. I stopped in for a butchers and while leafing through “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” found it to be complete RUBBISH! I was rather cheesed off that THIS is the kind of material you Americans are passing off as literature. American novelists set low personal standards and then consistently fail to achieve them, it seems!
Furthermore, I take umbrage with this book appearing on the New York Times Best seller list. Good God, they’ve lowered their standards, haven’t they, Ol’ Mitchie?? Looking at their list I am reminded very much of a gyroscope – always spinning around at a frantic pace, but never really going anywhere. If that is their intent, then, Cheers to you for fitting right in!
To all that read this, steer clear of this book…and any that follow! Mr. Albom has really botched it up with this one! Phew, I can smell it’s stink from here, oof!
Your monies are better spent on a fine piece of science fiction…perhaps one of MY novels!?!
Yours in Good Health (and QUALITY writing),
H.G.
Rating: 1 / 5