Announcement of a New Book!

            With the completion of The Great Gatsby, it is necessary that we choose a new title to read for THE FINER THINGS CLUB.  If it is allowed, I should like to choose the next novel, after which, someone else can choose—similar to the process undertaken last summer.  The novel I have chosen is Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom.  My interest in this book was stimulated when my Personal Finance Professor, Craig Israelson, would often begin class by quoting some of its passages.  Of what I heard, I was very impressed by the depth, intensity, and presentation of the subject.  Tuesdays With Morrie is a book about death.  The Boston Globe called the book “An extraordinary contribution to the literature of death.”[1] 

The work covers several timeless themes all seen through the lens of an incapacitated man, dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease.  Knowing that the setting suns are becoming increasingly fewer, Morrie makes the conscious decision to continue living—not allowing death to claim him as its fearful victim—rather as the calm, reasonable person that he is.  This resolve, borne in the forge of one of life’s greatest adversities, is inspiring to experience. 

With the recent passing of my father, of course, anything written on the mysterious subject of death magnetically manipulates my attention.  One passage particularly resonated the chords of understanding.  Death, in our family, came as an unexpected guest.  He glided in, silently stealing away someone we thought belonged to us.  Morrie reports: “Everyone knows they’re going to die,…but nobody believes it.  If we did, we would do things differently.”[2]  This doing things differently speech is particularly penetrating.  I am thrilled to commence this book.

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[1] Albom, Mitch.  Tuesdays With Morrie. New York: Broadway Books, 2002. Print. P. 81.

[2] Ibid. Back Cover.