Tuesdays With Morrie: A Book Review

This book review contains NO SPOILERS. Enjoy! (:

The book review I present today is the first Mitch Albom book that I ever desired to read. And like I do with food, I wanted to save the best for last, so I started a few years ago by reading Albom's other well-known novel, The Five People You Meet In Heaven. Though I did enjoy the book, I wasn't thrilled and my desire to read Tuesdays With Morrie dissipated. On a trip to one of Border's final closing sales, I picked up For One More Day at 40% off and read that just this year (if you're interested in that review, you can find it here). That book didn't fuel my desire for more Albom either. However, I decided to finally pick up Tuesdays With Morrie once and for all, and here is my spoiler-free review.

(photographed: Mitch Albom's Tuesdays With Morrie)

As usual, I'll start off with a quick synopsis. Since the back-cover of this book is simply filled with praise, and going onto Amazon to copy and paste the book description is far too much work for me, I'll write a short and sweet description myself.

Tuesdays With Morrie is a memoir that shares the story of an aging professor, Morrie, and his former student, Mitch, as they spend the remains of the man's dying days together pondering questions of life.

For One More Day: A Book Review

This review contains NO SPOILERS. Enjoy! (:

The book review I have today is for one that has been sitting on my bookshelf for nearly a year now, Mitch Albom's For One More Day. I picked it up at one of Border's sales as their stores were closing up and was almost more attracted to the book because of its discount. I had read Albom's The Five People You Meet In Heaven and enjoyed it so I figured I'd pick this one up as well. Tuesdays With Morrie is still on my to-read list. However, I have a tendency to push myself to avoid reading a single authors work consecutively so it may be a while before I ever get to that one.

(photographed: Mitch Albom's For One More Day)

The inside cover of For One More Day gives a fairly lengthy description:

"As a child, Charley Benetto is told by his father, 'You can be a mama's boy or you can be a daddy's boy, but you can't be both.' So he chooses his father, and he worships him-right up to the day the man disappears. An eleven-year-old Charley must then turn to his mother, who bravely raises him on her own, despite Charley's embarrassment and yearnings for a complete family.

Decades later, Charley is a broken man. His life has crumbled by alcohol and regret. He loses his job. He leaves his family. He hits bottom after discovering his only daughter has shut him out of her wedding.

And he decides to take his own life.

He makes a midnight ride to his small hometown, with plans to do himself in. But upon failing even to do that, he staggers back to his old house, only to make an astonishing discovery. His mother-who died eight years earlier-is still living there, and welcomes him home as if nothing had ever happened."