all your Reads in Here

If you read my blog on Thursday, you might have read Ron Charles' Washington Post review of this book.  https://wapo.st/2IOE7zI . It was funny. But, I read Mitch Albom's The Next Person You Meet in Heaven. It's really directed at the same audience that made The Five People You Meet in Heave n a #1 bestseller. In The Five People You Meet in Heaven , Eddie, a maintenance man at Ruby Pier amusement park, died saving a little girl from a cable that snapped on a ride. Now, twenty-five years later, Annie, that little girl, is a nurse. She's also a newlywed, for one day. That's not a spoiler. The author makes it obvious with an hour-by-hour countdown that it's the last day of Annie's life. But, throughout the book, readers meet the five people (used loosely) who changed or affected Annie's life. Readers see Annie's view of every situation. Most times, Annie thinks she made a mistake that caused a tragic result, but she's blocked out the accident that ...

Jonathan Santolofer's book, The Widower's Notebook, is a memoir. The author of The Death Artist and Anatomy of Fear did not write an instructional manual as to how to survive grief. It's a very personal account of the sudden death of his wife, Joy, and his own struggle with grief and his emotions around her death. Joy Santlofer was "only" scheduled for outpatient surgery on her leg, but a day later she was dying. What caused it is not the focus of the book, although it took her husband over a year to learn what the cause of death was. And, that's an unusual story in itself. But, at the time Joy was dying, her husband could only watch in panic as the paramedics worked on her, rushed her to the hospital, and then she was gone. Jonathan Santlofer needed comfort after she was gone, but he couldn't ask for it. There was "a stance I maintained for months, the strong man who needs no one." He and their daughter, Doria, were united in loss, but neither...