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/.6
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Browse the best books of summer including blockbusters, beach reads, and editors' picks in our Summer Reading Store. |
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
Editorial Reviews
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
From Publishers Weekly
"At the time of his death, Eddie was an old man with a barrel chest and a torso as squat as a soup can," writes Albom, author of the bestselling phenomenon Tuesdays with Morrie, in a brief first novel that is going to make a huge impact on many hearts and minds. Wearing a work shirt with a patch on the chest that reads "Eddie" over "Maintenance," limping around with a cane thanks to an old war injury, Eddie was the kind of guy everybody, including Eddie himself, tended to write off as one of life's minor characters, a gruff bit of background color. He spent most of his life maintaining the rides at Ruby Pier, a seaside amusement park, greasing tracks and tightening bolts and listening for strange sounds, "keeping them safe." The children who visited the pier were drawn to Eddie "like cold hands to a fire." Yet Eddie believed that he lived a "nothing" life-gone nowhere he "wasn't shipped to with a rifle," doing work that "required no more brains than washing a dish." On his 83rd birthday, however, Eddie dies trying to save a little girl. He wakes up in heaven, where a succession of five people are waiting to show him the true meaning and value of his life. One by one, these mostly unexpected characters remind him that we all live in a vast web of interconnection with other lives; that all our stories overlap; that acts of sacrifice seemingly small or fruitless do affect others; and that loyalty and love matter to a degree we can never fathom. Simply told, sentimental and profoundly true, this is a contemporary American fable that will be cherished by a vast readership. Bringing into the spotlight the anonymous Eddies of the world, the men and women who get lost in our cultural obsession with fame and fortune, this slim tale, like Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, reminds us of what really matters here on earth, of what our lives are given to us for.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
More About the Author
Mitch Albom is an author, playwright, and screenwriter who has written seven books, including the international bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie, the bestselling memoir of all time. His first novel, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller, as were For One More Day, his second novel, and Have a Little Faith, his most recent work of nonfiction. All four books were made into acclaimed TV films. Albom also works as a columnist and a broadcaster and has founded seven charities in Detroit and Haiti, where he operates an orphanage/mission. He lives with his wife, Janine, in Michigan.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
255 of 283 people found the following review helpful
By Kenneth Yeh
Format: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.
615 of 702 people found the following review helpful
By Beth
Format: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!!
77 of 89 people found the following review helpful
By Andy Tan
Format: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
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
68 of 82 people found the following review helpful
By J. Whelan
Format:Paperback
I read this because it was strongly urged upon my by a friend. It was a quick and painless read, but a waste of time. I will try to avoid spoilers.
It is about a saintly old codger named Eddie, who in the opening chapter dies heroically at the age of 83 attempting to save a child's life. (This, BTW, is exactly how I would like to die -- heroically, at the age of 83). He finds himself in a sort of afterlife, where he must meet five former mortals (all in some way connected to his earthly life) who will explain his past life to him, so that he can understand it better. Evidently, this routine of the five-explainers is something that every departed soul must endure (hence the title seemingly addressed to the generic reader), but it is a different five for everyone. Why it should always be five -- no more and no less --is apparently just an arbitrary decision of the author.
These five heavenly explainers serve as a framing device through wich the author tells us the story of Eddie's life, while still incorporating elements of Eddie's story that Eddie could not have known while alive. The revelations are often painful to Eddie. But apart from its usefulness as a non-linear storytelling device, it is hard to see the point of the purgatory that Eddie must endure, or of the phony wisdom that the explainers occasionally expound.
The overall lesson and theme is that everything is connected, and (in particular) that there were connections in Eddie's life that he was unaware of while alive. He learns, for instance, that his acts have, unbeknownst to him, caused tragedy for others, and that certain of his own fortunes and misfortunes were inextricably connected to each other.... Read more ›
It is about a saintly old codger named Eddie, who in the opening chapter dies heroically at the age of 83 attempting to save a child's life. (This, BTW, is exactly how I would like to die -- heroically, at the age of 83). He finds himself in a sort of afterlife, where he must meet five former mortals (all in some way connected to his earthly life) who will explain his past life to him, so that he can understand it better. Evidently, this routine of the five-explainers is something that every departed soul must endure (hence the title seemingly addressed to the generic reader), but it is a different five for everyone. Why it should always be five -- no more and no less --is apparently just an arbitrary decision of the author.
These five heavenly explainers serve as a framing device through wich the author tells us the story of Eddie's life, while still incorporating elements of Eddie's story that Eddie could not have known while alive. The revelations are often painful to Eddie. But apart from its usefulness as a non-linear storytelling device, it is hard to see the point of the purgatory that Eddie must endure, or of the phony wisdom that the explainers occasionally expound.
The overall lesson and theme is that everything is connected, and (in particular) that there were connections in Eddie's life that he was unaware of while alive. He learns, for instance, that his acts have, unbeknownst to him, caused tragedy for others, and that certain of his own fortunes and misfortunes were inextricably connected to each other.... Read more ›
54 of 65 people found the following review helpful
By Larry C
Format:Hardcover
Well, nothing against all the positive reviews, but I really did not like this book. It had all the subtlety and nuance of an afterschool special.
I mean, what a great premise: a grizzled, injured war vet with a guilty conscience and a dead-end life gets a chance to re-examine his earthly existance with the aid of five heavenly guides. Wow. Unfortunately I thought the book simply failed to deliver a good story.
I found it way too sweet and pat and I really could not feel like I got to know the main character at all. Every situation was cliche, and every ending was just so pat. I kept waiting for the grand insight that would make it all worthwhile, but it never came.
Instead, made-for-TV quality expositions on heaven and the meaning of life. Too bad.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love
Tis was so comforting for me. I lost my dad and haven't been at peace with it until reading this book.
Published 5 hours ago by Kelley Udulutch
5.0 out of 5 stars
I love it
it is a really good novel that I personally enjoyed with in my class, I highly recommend to read it
Published 1 day ago by T. SALAMAH
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing
Anyone who has ever felt that their life is meaningless should read this book. We never realize how our actions affect other humans but they do. Read more
Published 2 days ago by very addicting
4.0 out of 5 stars
An interesting read!
A very thought provoking book. Enjoyed the sequence of events and how they unravelled
I would recommend this book to Kaloma O'Mard Hamilton.
I would recommend this book to Kaloma O'Mard Hamilton.
Published 2 days ago by Taurosiempre
5.0 out of 5 stars
great
Excellent Book, I will definitely try other bookss from this author. Saw the movie and the book was very similar
Published 3 days ago by Eva D
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good book
This was a good book and I enjoyed his writing. Have read his other books and this was good also.
Published 3 days ago by Shirley Couts
5.0 out of 5 stars
A favorite
This book was loaned to me and I read it cover to cover in one sitting. It made me feel so good, that I immediately started reading it again. Read more
Published 3 days ago by BonniePearl
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Read!
I enjoyed this book as well as all of Mitch Albom's work. If you read this it will keep you wanting more of Mitch!
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
Published 5 days ago by Candace Vitulano
4.0 out of 5 stars
Love lost
Great story. I long to feel the love that Eddie and his wife shared. It's sad that we have to read in books the sacrifice married couples go through and still be able to heal and... Read more
Published 9 days ago by Joshua Madson
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mitch is a Wonderful Author
I read this book once before a few years ago. It still holds up the second time around. This is a Heaven I would love to see. None will know till we get there, though. Read more
Published 9 days ago by Kathleen
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Listmania!
So You'd Like to...
|
|
