Do you know this author??

schlaps

Hi guys,

I am looking for a book for my girlfriend for Christmas.

Its the lates book by "Mitch Halpin", not sure if thats the right name. He also wrote a book that called something like "5 things you have todo before you die".

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Bodhidharma

I believe this is the guy


http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_w_h_/026-2783665-8592434?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=mitch+albom

schlaps

Bodhidharma you are a god among men.

Thanks a million

BossArky

I found "5 people you meet in heaven" to be a tad soppy. Perhaps ideal for a girlfriend

Oul Wan

Yes, I agree, it was soppy. It was lovely.

sceptre

Mitch Albom.

Co-incidentally but conveniently, here's a recent review I wrote of the book for one of them there print publications.

sceptre in review mode wrote:

Mitch Albom’s For One More Day is a book fundamentally about regret and missed opportunity. It’s Capraesque in that there’s an immense loss of purpose directed by circumstances outside the control of the chief protagonist, an exploration of the depths of hopelessness and a shining path gingerly offered away from that despair.

An ex-major league baseballer, Chick Benetto is a broken man consumed by regret, an alcoholic and a negligent father. When he tries to commit suicide and fails, he awakens to find the ghost of his dead mother Posey to take him through a one-day redemptive trip as he reflects on his life. An ordinary day in which Benetto traces the course of his rise and fall through a simple narrative. Yes, you can read that as 'Albom uses short words and simple sentences', which tend to suit the vocal dialogue that peppers the book although it occasionally falls short of supporting the narrative. There’s a rather dynamic mother-son relationship portrayed in this novel as Albom follows Benetto’s version of the ordinary day that many people who have lost a loved one seek, in this case the chance to make up with and seek forgiveness from a lost parent.

Self-forgiveness is a recurring theme in Albom’s work – his mother’s final advice to Benetto is to forgive himself, reminiscient of Morrie Schwartz’s advice in Tuesdays With Morrie that people need to forgive themselves. He writes sentimental tear-jerkers and his novels tend to explore a simple theme – why the characters lived and what they lived for.

This should have been the kind of book that appealed to me. Like Albom’s Chick Benetto, my mother died somewhat unexpectedly at the end of a year during which I had little contact with her. Following a parental separation too, like Benetto. Hence, I’m squarely in the middle of the willing audience for maternal sentimentality. However, I’m not convinced by a work where the central message is "forgive yourself" rather than "heal thyself" as there’s rather too much pandering to the new Generation Me contained therein. Virtually all the blame for Chick Benetto’s troubled life is piled on a stymied relationship with his mother and a clinical one with his father. There’s self-discovery, sure, but it all centres around Benetto’s discovery that his mother made sacrifices for him of which he was thitherto unaware. Put bluntly, the central theme probably isn’t enough for anyone other than those who feel bad about themselves and want to feel better. If that’s what you’re after, start queuing now.

Anyone who places either Tuesdays With Morrie or The Five People You Meet In Heaven among their favourite books will genuinely love this effort. It’s not as good as the previous two or even Albom’s compendiums of his newspaper columns but his fans will love it. The cynics or realists among us who prefer sentimentality dabbed with a fine brush as Capra did rather than a large roller like Albom does will be best-placed spending money elsewhere. If you’d like more of the same, buy it as you’ll undoubtedly enjoy it but if that’s what a reader is searching for, my review is unlikely to sway your opinion as you’ve undoubtedly stumped up for it already.