This is a VERY quick blog post! My family and I stayed in Kew, London last night as a treat between Christmas and New Year. Our hotel room had various nice things in it, including a basket of books 🙂 A quick look at its contents bought me to Tuesdays with Morrie by MitchAlbom. 
I have previously read The five people you meet in heaven  also by Mitch and I really liked that and I knew that it wouldn’t take me too long to read. I was however maybe pushing it with a single night in the hotel and a Christmassy illuminated walk around Kew Gardens to fill my time. My kids were relaxing in front of the goggle box after a long day, so I had a first crack at the book. It was very good, in a similar way to ‘5 people’ without being too close. I cracked through it at that wonderful speed where you have a reason to finish a book quickly, but need to properly take in all of the info. My estimates of time take are:-
- 45 mins first stab before dinner
- 20 mins after dinner
- An hour and a half sitting with a pint after the kids were in bed
So, that’s just over two and a half hours, and I was finished. I had achieved what I set out to, had snuck in an additional book between the ones I had planned and it was a really good read!
To give it a quick review, it is about Mitch who has allowed work and “things” to take over his life since leaving university. He was very close to one of his professors and they get back in touch after the prof (Morrie) is on TV having been diagnosed with ALS (a neurodegenerative disease.)Â After a first visit, they meet on Tuesdays and the various untangling of both lives with lots of meaning of life advice forms the main body of the book. Some reviews seem to find the book too saccharine sweet, but I think Mitch nailed it. It fitted particularly well with the Bill Hicks material that I am currently reading (reading slightly slower I might add!) If Bill had toned his act down a little, the message (and by Bill’s own request “listen to the message and not the words”) from Bill and Mitch is pretty similar. Look inside yourself to remove the blinkers of the world and understand what should drive you and how you should act. Obviously, I’m paraphrasing there, but you get the gist?
Rating 8/10