| The Five People You Meet in Heaven |  | Author: Mitch Albom
Publisher: Topeka Bindery
Category: Book
List Price: $21.65
Buy New: $11.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1604 reviews
Sales Rank: 2519849
Media: Library Binding
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 196
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 1417774320
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9781417774326
ASIN: 1417774320
Publication Date: April 7, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: * HARDBACK * NEW
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Amazon.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
Product Description
From the author of the number one New York Times bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie comes this long-awaited follow-up.
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?
A moving and profound contemporary fable, The Five People You Meet in Heaven is an important reminder of the interconnectedness of us all.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1599 more reviews...
 Lessons for life October 3, 2008
The lessons from this book can help us to live our life with more connection to self and others. We don't have to wait until we die to recognize that we can live with meaning in the here and now.
Your destiny fulfilled September 25, 2008
Why you SHOULD read this book:
- Sense of harmony and balance with life and death
- The acknowledgment that you have a God-given purpose
- Simple and quick read
- The flashback to the past references keeps you entertained and cleverly unfolds the present
- Mental picture is easy to orchestrate
- The epilogue!
Why you SHOULD NOT read this book:
- If you cannot let go of your own view of heaven
- You can't read in pictures
- Or you over-analyse
**This is the first story-telling book I've read in about 10 years! This isn't a book about death, nor is it a book about heaven; this is a book about LIFE here...right this very moment! I couldn't have been happier with reading this. If you don't get teary-eyed, you don't have a pulse! It's good enough for Oprah!**
Sidenote to those criticizing:
Shut up.
Overly sweet, but who cares? September 25, 2008
So I guess I'm a sucker for the cheesy. The fact is that this book made an emotional impact on me with the idea that we are all connected in ways we will never fully understand, for good and for bad.
An elderly man is killed in a tragic fairgrounds accident. When he reaches the other side, he learns that before he can be fully at peace he must meet five different people who have either affected his life or visa versa. It's touching and powerful and an intriguing idea.
Some people might gag at the symbolism and obvious heartstrings, but the right sentimental crowd will appreciate the great lessons.
A slice of heaven(4.5 stars) September 18, 2008
I have to agree with the comparisons others have made between 'Five People...' and "It's a Wonderful Life". Both stories follow similar paths, as their main characters are shown that they did in fact make a difference, in spite of their doubts. And both stories progress slowly but steadily from uncertain beginnings to incredibly poignant finishes.
I really wasn't expecting Eddie's meeting with 'Five' to turn out the way it did...but Tala made a good story into a great one!
As with 'Tuesdays with Morrie', I had a few little quibbles with the story, but they really aren't that important. This is a worthwhile follow-up to 'Morrie', and perhaps a sign that Albom can work on fleshing out ideas and characters, and develop a talent for writing prose that can rank with the best of his sports articles.
 Stop with this kind of topic, please. September 18, 2008
You know how sometimes Hollywood doesn't seem to know when to stop with all the sequels and trilogies, etc.? That's how I feel about this book. After the absolute masterpiece that is "Tuesdays with Morrie," I really feel that Albom attempts to go back to the well but there is very little water. Although it may not be fair to compare a non-fiction book to a fiction book, Albom sets himself up for this by writing about and reflecting on death again. I'm not against the possibility that all of us affect other humans on a daily basis in ways we can't imagine, I just don't really like how Albom portrays this in this book.
The book is a quick read and has some good thoughts but nothing compared to the incredible lessons that the real-life Morrie bestowed upon us.
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