Overview
Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher. Someone older who understood you when you were young and searching, who helped you see the world as a more profound place, and gave you 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 your 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?
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.
Tuesdays With Morrie is a magical chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch shares Morrie's lasting gift to the world.
Synopsis
It s been ten years since Mitch Albom first shared the wisdom of Morrie Schwartz with the world. Now twelve million copies later in a new foreword, Mitch Albom reflects again on the meaning of Morrie s life lessons and the gentle, irrevocable impact of their Tuesday sessions all those years ago...
"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?
Publishers Weekly
As a student at Brandeis University in the late 1970s, Albom was especially drawn to his sociology professor, Morris Schwartz. On graduation he vowed to keep in touch with him, which he failed to do until 1994, when he saw a segment about Schwartz on the TV program Nightline, and learned that he had just been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease. By then a sports columnist for the Detroit Free Press and author of six books, including Fab Five, Albom was idled by the newspaper strike in the Motor City and so had the opportunity to visit Schwartz in Boston every week until the older man died. Their dialogue is the subject of this moving book in which Schwartz discourses on life, self-pity, regrets, aging, love and death, offering aphorisms about each e.g., "After you have wept and grieved for your physical losses, cherish the functions and the life you have left." Far from being awash in sentiment, the dying man retains a firm grasp on reality. An emotionally rich book and a deeply affecting memorial to a wise mentor, who was 79 when he died in 1995.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
Most of us, at some point in our schooling, have had a teacher who had a major impact on our thinking and the way we've lived our lives. What a treat would it be now, all these years later, to reacquaint ourselves with that treasure advisor, to learn again those lessons he or she shared when we were young. Mitch Albom was given that opportunity. He spent several months regularly visiting his college professor, Morrie Schwartz, during the elder man's final year of life. Tuesdays with Morrie is Albom's best-selling tribute to the man who gave him so much.Kirkus Reviews
Award-winning sportswriter Albom was a student at Brandeis University, some two decades ago, of sociologist Morrie Schwartz. Here Albom recounts how, recently, as the old man was dying, he renewed his warm relationship with his revered mentor.This is the vivid record of the teacher's battle with muscle-wasting amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease. The dying man, largely because of his life-affirming attitude toward his death-dealing illness, became a sort of thanatopic guru, and was the subject of three Ted Koppel interviews on 'Nightline.' That was how the author first learned of Morrie's condition. Albom well fulfilled the age-old obligation to visit the sick. He calls his weekly visits to his teacher his last class, and the present book a term paper. The subject: The Meaning of Life. Unfortunately, but surely not surprisingly, those relying on this text will not actually learn The Meaning of Life here. Albom does not present a full transcript of the regular Tuesday talks. Rather, he expands a little on the professor's aphorisms, which are, to be sure, unassailable. 'Love is the only rational act,' Morrie said. 'Love each other or perish,' he warned, quoting Auden. Albom learned well the teaching that 'death ends a life, not a relationship.' The love between the old man and the younger one is manifest.
This book, small and easily digested, stopping just short of the maudlin and the mawkish, is on the whole sincere, sentimental, and skillful. (The substantial costs of Morrie's last illness, Albom tells us, were partly defrayed by the publisher's advance). Place it under the heading 'Inspirational.'
'Death,' said Morrie, 'is as natural as life. It's partof the deal we made.' If that is so (and it's not a notion quickly gainsaid), this book could well have been called 'The Art of the Deal.'
Publishers Weekly
As a student at Brandeis University in the late 1970s, Albom was especially drawn to his sociology professor, Morris Schwartz. On graduation he vowed to keep in touch with him, which he failed to do until 1994, when he saw a segment about Schwartz on the TV program Nightline, and learned that he had just been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease. By then a sports columnist for the Detroit Free Press and author of six books, including Fab Five, Albom was idled by the newspaper strike in the Motor City and so had the opportunity to visit Schwartz in Boston every week until the older man died. Their dialogue is the subject of this moving book in which Schwartz discourses on life, self-pity, regrets, aging, love and death, offering aphorisms about each e.g., "After you have wept and grieved for your physical losses, cherish the functions and the life you have left." Far from being awash in sentiment, the dying man retains a firm grasp on reality. An emotionally rich book and a deeply affecting memorial to a wise mentor, who was 79 when he died in 1995.Children's Literature
Morrie Schwartz was Mitch Albom's professor at Brandeis University twenty years ago. Now Morrie has ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and Mitch reestablishes his close relationship with his favorite professor. Every Tuesday for a period of three months, Mitch talks with Morrie, recording their conversations. Yes, you will shed some tears but this is not a depressing story for Morrie teaches us how to live. Death awaits us all, but it is what we do with our lives that is at the heart of this book. Dip into Morrie's philosophy. I guarantee that you will be enriched by this experience. It is a life-affirming story, a celebration of the human spirit.Jim Bencivenga
What keeps this uplifting book from being maudlin is Albom's crisp writing and Schwartz's generous heart.—The Christian Science Monitor