My Comments: Mitch Albom's latest book.  He continues to write thought provoking stories that will touch your heart.  I like it because he's not afraid to tap the reader's emotions.

This is the story of Charley, a child of divorce who is always forced to choose between his mother and his father. He grows into a man and starts a family of his own. But one fateful weekend, he leaves his mother to secretly be with his father - and she dies while he is gone. This haunts him for years. It unravels his own young family. It leads him to depression and drunkenness. One night, he decides to take his life. But somewhere between this world and the next, he encounters his mother again, in their hometown, and gets to spend one last day with her - the day he missed and always wished he'd had. He asks the questions many of us yearn to ask, the questions we never ask while our parents are alive. By the end of this magical day, Charley discovers how little he really knew about his mother, the secret of how her love saved their family, and how deeply he wants the second chance to save his own.

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My Comments: This is a powerful and well written story.  It opens with the end, and then takes you through the story of the main characters life.  Great opening sentence to the book, and great book.

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?'

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My Comments: Spectacular book.  This was recommended to me for about two years before I finally read it, and I can't believe I waited that long.  A great reminder of our own mortality and our potential to live an amazing life.

Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague.  Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it.  For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.  Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded, and the world seemed colder.  Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you, receive wisdom for your busy life today the way you once did when you were younger?  Mitch Albom had that second chance.  He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man's life.  Knowing he was dying, Morrie visited with Mitch in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college.  Their rekindled relationship turned into one final "class": lessons in how to live.
 

My Comments: This is the one that really started me on my journey.  I've read it at least a dozen times, and each reading brings me something new and helps me a little farther down my path.  A little, easy to read, story that forever changed me.

In the cloud-washed airspace between the cornfields of Illinois and blue infinity, a man puts his faith in the propeller of his biplane. For disillusioned writer and itinerant barnstormer Richard Bach, belief is as real as a full tank of gas and sparks firing in the cylinders...until he meets Donald Shimoda--former mechanic and self-described messiah who can make wrenches fly and Richard's imagination soar....

In Illusions, the unforgettable follow-up to his phenomenal bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach takes to the air to discover the ageless truths that give our souls wings: that people don't need airplanes to soar...that even the darkest clouds have meaning once we lift ourselves above them... and that messiahs can be found in the unlikeliest places--like hay fields, one-traffic-light midwestern towns, and most of all, deep within ourselves.

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My Comments: Richard Bach's first book, Illusions came after it.  It's another one of those that you keep with you, and when you feel like things are getting out of whack, you pick it up, turn to any page, and somehow, someway, exactly what you need to hear is staring up at you.  For all the aspiring authors out there, this book was rejected by countless publishers, and then sold millions of copies once it was released.  You'll know why when you read it.

This is a story for people who follow their hearts and make their own rules...people who get special pleasure out of doing something well, even if only for themselves...people who know there's more to this living than meets the eye: they'll be right there with Jonathan, flying higher and faster than ever they dreamed.

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My Comments: I met the author of this book at a signing.  She was going on as I was finishing.  Her writing truly does dance, that's the best way I can describe it.  This book is her story of what it was like to leave her life as a Harvard lawyer, and pursue a life doing what mattered to her.  If you're at that junction, I think you'll find inspiration in her story.

We all look for what will make us happy in life, but we don't always make the choices that we should when it comes to sustaining that happiness. Tama Kieves shows how to do just that: how to stay happy and employed doing something you love, and what it takes to stop being a stressed-out worker and make peace with your career-and, most important, with yourself. Filled with solutions to the anxieties and roadblocks you may confront on your path, This Time I Dance! is for all those who are unfulfilled at work and uncertain of the practical steps that they should follow to achieve their dreams.
 

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My Comments: Fascinating book.  This was hand sold to me by the owner of one of my favorite little book stores.  It isn't a story, it's a visual description of what the author found in his studies of water, and how things like thoughts, words, our environment, etc. impact water.  All of this will be fascinating to you, and then you'll get to the part where he says 70% of our bodies are water, and your view of everything around you will instantly shift.

This book has the potential to profoundly transform your world view. Using high-speed photography, Dr. Masaru Emoto discovered that crystals formed in frozen water reveal changes when specific, concentrated thoughts are directed toward them. He found that water from clear springs and water that has been exposed to loving words shows brilliant, complex, and colorful snowflake patterns. In contrast, polluted water, or water exposed to negative thoughts, forms incomplete, asymmetrical patterns with dull colors. The implications of this research create a new awareness of how we can positively impact the earth and our personal health.