Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #725 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Time
'Albom has done it again . . . a powerful book, powerful enough to make one’s inner snob feel a little uncomfortable'

Publishing News
'Simple, unaffected and written with great feeling'

Synopsis
From the author of the phenomenal number one bestseller TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE, comes this enchanting, beautifully written novel that explores a mystery only heaven can unfold. Eddie is a grizzled war veteran who feels trapped in the toil of his father before him, fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. Then he dies in a tragic accident, trying to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakens in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a lush Garden of Eden, but a place where your earthly life is explained to you by five people who were in it. These people may have been loved ones or distant strangers. Yet each of them changed your path forever. As the story builds to its stunning conclusion, Eddie desperately seeks redemption in the still-unknown last act of his life. Was it a heroic success or a devastating failure? The answer is as magical and inspirational as a glimpse of heaven itself.

Customer Reviews

This book...
I liked this book because it makes you think about everyday things in a whole different way - that 90% of how we influence others circling in life around us is what we don't see. It is so easy to get absorbed in what we are doing and to focus on what we need to do and where we need to be that it is possible to miss so much and the near-misses, the passing by of people who otherwise seem removed but for whom we have significance. The book highlights how we often don't even realise that we move through the world and affect people in ways for which we may be completely unaware because they may have no impact on us, but there was hidden meaning and significance in the interactions, however brief.

The book is beautifully written and lovely to read. It is thought provoking and touching. It is one of those rare books that held my attention from the moment I started reading it and I finished it in one day because of being so captivated by it.

If I have one complaint, it is that I did not like the idea of there being only five people you meet you in heaven. I would think that in a lifetime, particulary of someone in their 80's, there would be a lot more people. But then, perhaps the five is meant as a kind of allegory and having too many people would make the book too long and it would lose its powerful effect.

Disappointing
Well there's 3 days of my life I'll never get back!

Sorry, but I have to disagree with most of the reviews of this.
I was really looking forward to what I thought would be interesting subject matter with the potential for a great deal of exploration.

What I found was the basis for a trite america made-for-tv movie.

Avoid would be the only word that springs to mind.

five people you meet in heaven
a book that soothes the soul, repairs and heals and i am so glad i read it, iwas given it by a cousin after a spate of deaths. i was all grieved out but found this book beautiful and i have never reacted to a book the way i did this one....beautiful