2 amazing books you should read...

i am reading a wonderful book right now. i highly recommend the five people you meet in heaven by mitch alborn. it is not a heavy read. here is a bit about the book... eddie is a grizzled war veteran who feels trapped in a meaningless life of fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. as the park has changed over the years -- from the loop-the-loop to the pipeline plunge -- so, too, has eddie changed, from optimistic youth to embittered old age. his days are a dull routine of work, loneliness, and regret. then, on his 83rd birthday, eddie dies in a tragic accident, trying to save a little girl from a falling cart. with his final breath, he feels two small hands in his -- and then nothing. 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. one by one, eddie's five people illuminate the unseen connections of his earthly life. 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, which comes from the most unlikely of sources, is as inspirational as a glimpse of heaven itself.



the other book i highly recommend is the lovely bones by alice sebold. this book is a heavier read but worth it. it is being made into a movie by director peter jackson. it should be released in 2007. here is a bit about the book....


our narrator susie salmon is already in heaven. murdered by a neighbor when she was only fourteen years old, susie tells us what it is like to be in her new place. "when i first entered heaven i thought everyone saw what i saw. that in everyone's heaven there were soccer goalposts in the distance and lumbering women throwing shot put and javelin. that all the buildings were like suburban northeast high schools built in the 1960s." later she learns that heaven is whatever you truly want it to be and, sometimes, other people's version of heaven intercepts with your own. read excerpt susie meets another girl, holly, on her third day in heaven and they end up sharing their ideal home --- a duplex. franny, their intake counselor, helps them adjust. as susie gets used to living in heaven, she watches her family and friends on earth as they come to the realization that she is gone forever.

there is so much more to this one. you will just have to read it. i know both books deal with death but they are truly wonderful.