Five People You Meet in Heaven [Hardcover]

Mitch Albom (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Hyperion Books (2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401302475
• ISBN-13: 978-1401302474
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1,791 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,456,508 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

MITCH ALBOM is an internationally renowned and best-selling author, journalist, screenwriter, playwright, radio and television broadcaster and musician. His books have collectively sold over 28 million copies worldwide; have been published in forty-one territories and in forty-two languages around the world; and have been made into Emmy Award-winning and critically-acclaimed television movies.

He is the author of ten books, including the newest, "Have a Little Faith. His first novel, "The Five People You Meet in Heaven", (9/03) is the most successful U.S. hardback first novel ever and has to date sold over 11 million copies worldwide. "Tuesdays With Morrie," (1997) his chronicle of time spent with a beloved but dying college professor, spent four years on the NY Times bestsellers list and is now the most successful memoir ever published. His three best sellers, including For One More Day (9/06) have been turned into successful TV movies. Oprah Winfrey produced the film version of Tuesdays With Morrie in December 1999, starring Jack Lemmon and Hank Azaria. The film garnered four Emmy awards, including best TV film, director, actor and supporting actor. The critically acclaimed Five People You Meet in Heaven aired on ABC in winter, 2004. Directed by Lloyd Kramer, the film was the most watched TV movie of the year, with 19 million viewers. Most recently, Oprah Winfrey Presents Mitch Albom's For One More Day aired on ABC in December 2007 and earned Ellen Burstyn a Screen Actors Guild nomination.

An award-winning journalist and radio host, Albom wrote the screenplay for both For One More Day and The Five People You Meet in Heaven, and is an established playwright, having authored numerous pieces for the theater, including the off-Broadway version of Tuesdays With Morrie (co-written with Jeffrey Hatcher) which has seen over one hundred productions across the US and Canada.

Albom has founded three charities in the metropolitan Detroit area: "The Dream Fund," "A Time To Help," and "S.A.Y Detroit." Albom devoted an area of his website, www.mitchalbom.com/service , to hosting a directory of local and national service opportunities. He also raises money for literacy projects through a variety of means including his performances with The Rock Bottom Remainders, a band made up of writers which includes Steven King, Dave Barry, Scott Turow, Amy Tan and Ridley Pearson. Albom serves on the boards of various charities and, in 1999, was named National Hospice Organization's Man of the Year.

He lives with his wife, Janine, in Detroit, MI.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

200 of 224 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I couldn't put this book down., April 6, 2004

By 

Kenneth Yeh (Westminster, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (Hardcover)

I just got this book today when someone recommended it to me and when I started reading it I couldn't put it down. I skipped dinner and didn't do my homework but it was just that good. It leaves you wondering if you ever made a difference in someone's life here on earth. Then it makes you wonder who the five people you will meet in heaven are. This book was truly inspirational. It makes you want to go out into the world and try and make as big as impact on people's lives. I recommend anyone to read this book whether you believe in heaven or not. It's an absolutely amazing book.

576 of 660 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A true and compelling study of the meaning of life, November 15, 2003

By 

Beth (McKinney, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (Hardcover)

Without going into the set-up of the story (which you can find in other reviews), I'll simply say this amazing little book is on my Christmas shopping list for those that are the dearest to my heart. This is a book I want to share with everyone! Not to scare anyone away from it -- by the end of this story, I was a sobbing mess! The first four of Eddie's people give little pieces of the puzzle, profound little tidbits to help him understand more about the events in his life. But his "fifth person" reveals Eddie's true purpose in life, a life that Eddie felt was a "nothing existence" on Earth. He learns from his fifth person that his life was an incredibly important piece of the tapestry of life's experience here -- one that meant more to people than he could ever have dreamed. A truly inspiring piece of American literature that EVERYONE should read!!

58 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another life-defining book from Mitch Albom, October 20, 2003

By 

Andy Tan (Philadelphia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (Hardcover)

To tell the truth, after reading Tuesdays with Morrie from Mitch Albom, I did have high expectations for this follow-up.
And I must say that my expectations were more than surpassed by another winner from him.
The interweaving of Eddie "Maintenance"'s various aspects of life from his childhood, teenage years, courtship, military service, marriage, middle age to old age and finally the beginning of his journey through heaven was beautifully and intricately spun in this short tale.
The poetic descriptions of the various "steps" in heaven that Eddie traversed through in search for inner peace before his final resting destination and the 5 lessons he had to learnt brought to mind the eternal existentialistic questions of why we are here and what our life purpose is, in a quiet and non-intrusive manner. So much so that we can be prompted to examine our own lives more sympathetically.
The message I got from Mitch Albom at the end was that Eddie could have been anyone of us and that we do not need to wait for our turn to meet our five people in heaven to recognise that whatever we are doing now has meaning and has purpose in wonderful and beautiful ways and that we should never allow ourselves to belittle our lives.
Not quite the tearjerker as Tuesdays but Five People has certainly touched my heart and a few others in more ways than one. I hope that you will allow this beautiful book to touch yours too.
Kudos to Mitch Albom and a big thank you to his uncle Eddie for being the source of inspiration for this would-be classic.
God bless