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TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE

An old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson.

by Mitch Albom ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 1997

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 part of 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.''

Pub Date: Sept. 10, 1997

ISBN: 0-385-48451-8

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1997

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION

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BOOK REVIEW

by Mitch Albom

by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children. 

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. 

Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006

ISBN: 0374500010

Page Count: 120

Publisher: Hill & Wang

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HOLOCAUST | HISTORY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL HISTORY

More by Elie Wiesel

by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen

by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal

by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel

THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US

by Reyna Grande ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 28, 2012

A standout immigrant coming-of-age story.

In her first nonfiction book, novelist Grande ( Dancing with Butterflies , 2009, etc.) delves into her family’s cycle of separation and reunification.

Raised in poverty so severe that spaghetti reminded her of the tapeworms endemic to children in her Mexican hometown, the author is her family’s only college graduate and writer, whose honors include an American Book Award and International Latino Book Award. Though she was too young to remember her father when he entered the United States illegally seeking money to improve life for his family, she idolized him from afar. However, she also blamed him for taking away her mother after he sent for her when the author was not yet 5 years old. Though she emulated her sister, she ultimately answered to herself, and both siblings constantly sought affirmation of their parents’ love, whether they were present or not. When one caused disappointment, the siblings focused their hopes on the other. These contradictions prove to be the narrator’s hallmarks, as she consistently displays a fierce willingness to ask tough questions, accept startling answers, and candidly render emotional and physical violence. Even as a girl, Grande understood the redemptive power of language to define—in the U.S., her name’s literal translation, “big queen,” led to ridicule from other children—and to complicate. In spelling class, when a teacher used the sentence “my mamá loves me” (mi mamá me ama), Grande decided to “rearrange the words so that they formed a question: ¿Me ama mi mamá?  Does my mama love me ?”

Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012

ISBN: 978-1-4516-6177-4

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: June 11, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

More by Joshua Davis

by Joshua Davis ; adapted by Reyna Grande

edited by Reyna Grande & Sonia Guiñansaca

by Reyna Grande

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On the 25th anniversary of 'Tuesdays with Morrie,' the teaching goes on

Richard Harris

Mitch Albom and Morrie Schwartz hold hands on Oct. 3, 1995. ©Heather Pillar hide caption

Mitch Albom and Morrie Schwartz hold hands on Oct. 3, 1995.

Mitch Albom was intent on chronicling the Tuesdays he spent with Morrie Schwartz, his favorite college professor who was facing Lou Gehrig's disease. Albom's only goal was to write a book to pay for Schwartz' medical bills.

But publisher after publisher rejected his book proposal. Some said Albom's story of reconnecting with his professor who was determined to teach a final class on life's lessons was too much of a "downer." But Doubleday took a chance 25 years ago this month and published Tuesdays with Morrie in a limited press run.

There were no reviews at the outset. And mixed reviews in the early days.

Eventually, readers spread the news by word of mouth. Albom made an appearance on Oprah . Doubleday says to date, Tuesdays with Morrie has sold nearly 18 million copies globally and has been translated into 48 languages. It's one of the best-selling memoirs in the history of publishing.

"I'm a much different person than I was when I first started visiting him," Albom told NPR. "And I'm happy to give him credit for that."

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At its core, the memoir is about the power of relationship — between a professor and his student, between a man approaching his 80s and one not yet out of his 30s, and one whose accumulated life experiences can be passed down to a former student and then to the world at large, literally.

Schwartz established a rapport on Day One of class

To understand how their relationship developed, wind the clock back to the 1970s, when Albom was a freshman at Brandeis University. Arriving for sociology class, he saw a dozen or so students gathered and figured it might not be easy to cut such a small class and go unnoticed. But before he could sneak out, the professor called attendance in alphabetical order, beginning with Albom.

"Mitchell?" the professor asked.

Albom raised his hand.

"Do you prefer Mitch? Or is Mitchell better?"

"Mitch. My friends call me Mitch," he said.

"And, Mitch?"

"Yes?" Albom replied.

"I hope that one day you will think of me as your friend."

The right mentor can change your career

Albom stayed in that class and took every lecture Schwartz offered during his undergraduate years. They had lunch together, and Albom visited Schwartz' home. At graduation, he promised to stay in touch.

As often happens with such promises, life intervenes. There was not so much as a phone call or email from Albom to Schwartz in 16 years.

Nightline brought Schwartz back into Albom's life

Then, late one night in March 1995, Albom was channel surfing and heard Ted Koppel say something at the top of Nightline that got his attention:

"Who is Morrie Schwartz, and why by the end of the night are so many of you going to care about him?"

Koppel explained that Schwartz was terminally ill — a disease medically known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — but there was no curling up in the fetal position. Schwartz wanted to use whatever time he had left to teach about life to whoever would listen.

"When I saw Morrie on Nightline , the horror of the fact that he was going to die was mixed with the guilt that I felt over not contacting him for 16 years," Albom said.

How your brain copes with grief, and why it takes time to heal

So, he worked up the courage to call the professor he had called "Coach." He got through to his nurse, who handed Schwartz the phone.

"I said, 'Professor Schwartz, my name is Mitch Albom. I was a student of yours in the '70s. I don't know if you remember me.' And the first thing he said to me was 'How come you didn't call me 'Coach'?"

That's all Albom had to hear and soon reconnected with Morrie, the start of more than a dozen Tuesday sessions.

As he faced death, Schwartz offered lessons in life

Among Schwartz' regrets during his conversations with Albom was how young people grasped onto what he called "the major cultural values, like money status and power ... and then you find out it's not a good life. It's too empty. There's no real substantial meaning but by that time it's too late."

What stunned Albom during his Tuesday visits was how others who came to cheer up Schwartz often left his office an hour later in tears because Schwartz turned the tables on them and asked them about their problems — their love life, divorce or job.

Feeling anxious? Here's a quick tool to center your soul

"'I don't understand — you're the one who's dying, why don't you accept their sympathy? Why are you spending time advising people on THEIR lives,' " Albom recalled. "And he said, 'Mitch, why would I ever take from people like that? Taking just makes me feel like I'm dying. Giving makes me feel like I'm living.' "

That's when the trajectory of Albom's life started to change from someone he described as a "self-absorbed 100-hour-a-week journalist to someone asked to speak at funerals and hospice groups."

Albom said that line from Morrie — that giving makes you feel more alive than taking — was the beginning of his philanthropic work.

Schwartz' final request

Today, Albom still writes sports columns and does a daily radio show, but his passion is the work he does with an umbrella charity organization in Detroit and the monthly visits he makes to the orphanage he runs in Haiti.

"We have 60-plus kids," he said. "Many of them come up here. I have one with me right now, a 7-month-old. I'm changing diapers in my 60s."

When the baby had arrived at the orphanage, Nadie was suffering from severe malnutrition, so Albom brought her to Michigan where he hopes he and others who are helping can nurse her back to health in three months and return her to Port-Au-Prince.

The last Tuesday Albom visited Schwartz ended up being days before the professor's death in November 1995. Schwartz asked his student to visit his grave, have a sandwich and bring a blanket.

"He wanted me to talk to him at his grave. And I said, 'You want me to sit at your tombstone and talk to the air like a crazy person?' And he said, yes, just like we're talking now," Albom said.

"'Well, Morrie it's not going to be like we're talking now because let's face it you won't be able to talk back,' " he recalled. "And he looked at me as if I were being very naive. And he said, 'Mitch, I'll make a deal after I'm dead. You talk, I'll listen.' "

Then as now, Albom talks and Schwartz listens.

And as the last four words of Tuesdays with Morrie say: The teaching goes on.

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Summary  |  Excerpt  |  Reading Guide  |  Reviews  |  Read-Alikes  |  Genres & Themes  |  Author Bio

Tuesdays With Morrie

An Old Man, A Young Man & The Last Great Lesson

by Mitch Albom

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• About the Book

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?

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. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final “class”: lessons in how to live.

Tuesdays with Morrie  is a magical chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch shares Morrie's lasting gift with the world.

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 afterword, 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. . .

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

• Publication Date: October 8, 2002
• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Broadway
• ISBN-10: 076790592X
• ISBN-13: 9780767905923

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Family Book Review: Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

TEEN REVIEW | by Alexis Weeren

Before reading Tuesdays with Morrie , I hadn’t read anything by Mitch Albom. Actually, I hadn’t read much non-fiction (at least not much that wasn’t in a textbook), so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

But the story drew me in very quickly. Mitch Albom spent each Tuesday with Morrie, his former professor, who was very ill. As I read about these visits, I realized that this book was really about how we spend our time.

Teenagers often think they have all the time in the world. We focus on things that benefit mostly ourselves: enjoying our favorite hobbies, spending time with our friends, and trying to get into a good college. Even our community service can be more beneficial to us than to those we are meant to be helping. But this book reminded me that time is precious, and we ought to pay more attention to how we choose to spend it.

Albom had taken his relationship with his favorite professor for granted, assuming he would always be around. It wasn’t until he saw a news story featuring Morrie that Albom realized his mentor was not only sick, but dying . He decided to visit Morrie and ended up getting the most important lessons of his life.

In the book, Morrie says, “Love is the only rational answer.” That really resonated with me. He also says, “The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.” These statements reminded me of the importance of how we treat each other. As Morrie says, “Love Wins.”

Albom says that the thing he misses most about Morrie is his “belief in humanity.” It seems like Morrie took nothing for granted. He loved people fully and gave them his undivided attention.

This book’s message has really stayed with me. I pay more attention to the moments and people in front of me. I enjoyed Tuesdays with Morrie so much that I went on to read several of Mitch Albom’s other books. Each one has been better than the one before it.

PARENT REVIEW | by Ellen Weeren

Imagine counting your breaths to figure out how much life you have left in you. A healthy adult can exhale while counting to about 70. A dying man may not be able to get much past 15. That is one of the many things Mitch Albom learned on his Tuesday visits with his former professor Morrie, who had been diagnosed with ALS.

I’ve unfortunately watched more than one person I love suffer through a terminal illness. It’s hard, partly because there really isn’t anything you can do to help them and partly because you can’t truly imagine what they are going through. It’s difficult to get a firm grasp on what “the end” feels and looks like.

Tuesdays with Morrie gives a glimpse into that world. Morrie shares with Albom that “ALS is like a lit candle: it melts your nerves and leaves your body a pile of wax.”

Throughout the book, Morrie shares many valuable insights. One of his philosophies is, “Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do. Accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it.”

Morrie admits to crying about his situation, but only allowing himself a few moments each day to lament. Then he turned his attention to the people and activities he loved most, often giving comfort to those who visited him rather than receiving it.

People might stay away from sharing this book with younger readers. On the surface it seems to be only about death. But it’s truly about living. Morrie says, “ Dying is only one thing to be sad over, Mitch. Living unhappily is something else.”

The question of Morrie’s that sticks with me the most is, “Are you trying to be as human as you can be?”

Sometimes it feels easier, and safer, to be quick with our words and reserved with our kindness. Tuesdays with Morrie reminds us to slow down and appreciate each other. Morrie cautions that at the end of our lives, we will miss our relationships with people the most. They will matter much more than the things that seem so important to us. People are always worthy of our time and energy.

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Alexis Weeren is a senior at Chantilly High School in Chantilly, Virginia. She loves playing soccer, reading Mitch Albom books, and hanging with her friends.

Ellen Werren is a writer and teacher, and an MFA (fiction) candidate at George Mason University in Virginia.

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Book Review: Tuesdays with Morrie // Mitch Albom

Mitch Albom is a best selling author in the US and has spent many weeks at the top of their bestsellers list. Yet, in the UK, he has little to no name recognition. Having stumbled across his books in Waterstones before Covid, I’ve had several of them on my reading list for a while. Some people say that books come to you when they’re meant to and reading Tuesdays with Morrie this winter when the most recent lockdown was announced felt poetic. 

At its core, the book is a true story of a university professor (Morrie) reuniting with an old student (Mitch) after a viral interview in which Morrie talked about having ALS (a progressive disease). Mitch remembers fondly the idealistic lessons his sociology professor had taught him and feels the need to reunite with his old professor. He is initially apprehensive to meet Morrie again, as he hasn’t seen him in nearly twenty years and has since become work-oriented and productivity driven. 

Morrie is the teacher that we all wish we’d had. He exudes a calming aura, which Mitch conveys effectively through his writing. The initial meeting between the two men is touching in many ways as it shows the relationship between pupil and teacher at its purest. Morrie even offers to tell Mitch what it’s like to die. 

A strike at the newspaper Mitch works for gives him the time to reflect on how his life has turned out and to decide to go back to see Morrie every Tuesday. After his first few visits Mitch realises that Morrie doesn’t have much time left and decides to ask questions about some of the things which he wants to know most about- and to record Morrie’s answers to have something of him once he was gone. 

Mitch’s topics range from self-pity, to family and to how love can go on after death. Using these questions to structure Tuesdays with Morrie creates an educational structure for the reader to dip in for short bursts and ponder the lessons Morrie thinks we all need to follow to live and to die peacefully. Some of Morrie’s beliefs may seem cliché or cheesy but with the context of the setting they were told in, it is hard not to be touched. 

Tuesdays with Morrie is a book that I will come back to again and again as a reminder of the way in which I want to live. Throughout the book Morrie attests to the power of love and of the importance of giving over taking in life. Morrie believes that the more we do for others the better we feel. Even with only a few weeks of his life remaining, Morrie made time to talk to Mitch and to offer his thoughts on a range of subjects that meant a lot to Mitch. 

Albom has managed to share many of Morrie’s life lessons with millions of Americans and I hope that it starts to see more success on this side of the Atlantic. Albom has written many more critically praised books, such as The Five People You Meet In Heaven, which I can’t wait to start! If you’ve been feeling overworked or lost yourself to being endlessly productive, maybe it’s time for a lesson with Morrie.

Words by Tom Burgess

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Book Review: Tuesdays with Morrie

Tuesdays with Morrie is the most moving and sentimental novel I have ever read. The first person narrative told by the author Mitch Albom, walks through Albom’s life changing journey with his old college professor, Morrie. Albom spends a series of Tuesdays learning from Morrie, who had been diagnosed with ALS and has a very limited time to live. In this true story Morrie Schwartz speaks valuable truth and offers insight into what is important in life and why he wasn’t scared to die. My favorite quote from the novel is “Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.” Tuesdays with Morrie teaches all its readers how important everyday truly is, and how to not take life for granted.

Reviewer Grade:12

THE UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN’S MAIN CAMPUS IS SITUATED ON TREATY 6 TERRITORY AND THE HOMELAND OF THE MÉTIS.

Book Review: Tuesdays with Morrie will warm even the coldest of hearts.

By Kristine Jones A. Del Socorro   —   October 29, 2020   —   in Culture

If you are lost, want to find purpose and give your life meaning, Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom is for you.

This is a true story told by a former student about the time he spent having conversations with his professor Morrie about life’s greatest lessons. Every Tuesday, the old professor and the student met to learn about the meaning of life. The only requirement was to ask and answer questions, as well as help the professor complete tasks that he was unable to carry out due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Those Tuesdays they covered the topics of life, death and everything in between. As Morrie’s health worsened, their conversations deepened. They were running out of precious time. From talking about their own regrets, to what makes the perfect day, their conversations give the reader a sense of awakening. The duo takes a complex subject and simplifies it, showing the lesson behind it.

One important aspect of this book is that it is written by someone who acknowledges that his professional ambition has gotten in the way of many things in his life. Mitch asks himself: “What happened to me?” In front of Morrie, a man whose days were numbered, all he could think about was the promise he had made to himself when he was younger — to not work for money, to join the Peace Corps and live in “beautiful and inspirational places.”

During one of their visits, Morrie says “if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it.” Mitch reflects on the culture that he had created for himself over the years, and realizes that work had been his only priority.

“I had taken labor as my companion and moved everything to the side,” Mitch wrote.

The illuminating thing about this story is that it is told from a perspective of a healthy, young man who is learning from, and holding on to what is left of, someone older and wiser. Someone who he admired and loved, about to greet death’s kiss.

Mitch’s experience is not unheard of. When you live in a culture that places value in being busy or “productive” over everything else, it is almost impossible to imagine a life that isn’t fast paced. Over and over, this book sheds light on the importance of slowing down and taking in your surroundings.

The novel is interestingly written, jumping around from the past to the present, following Mitch’s memories. While the book mainly focuses on the protagonist’s meaningful interactions with the professor, it also covers some darker aspects of Mitch and Morrie’s personal lives, which are revealed as the story progresses. 

This blend of light and dark moments is what makes it very easy to get lost within the pages,  empathize with the characters and truly experience the book for what it is. If you are looking for something real — something that will help bring you closer to finding yourself and understanding the world around you at the same time, read this book. 

You will find the answers you are looking for somewhere inside. 

Kristine Jones A. Del Socorro | Culture Editor

Photo: Kristine Jones A. Del Socorro | Culture Editor

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Tuesdays with Morrie

Mitch albom, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Tuesdays with Morrie: Introduction

Tuesdays with morrie: plot summary, tuesdays with morrie: detailed summary & analysis, tuesdays with morrie: themes, tuesdays with morrie: quotes, tuesdays with morrie: characters, tuesdays with morrie: symbols, tuesdays with morrie: theme wheel, brief biography of mitch albom.

Historical Context of Tuesdays with Morrie

Other books related to tuesdays with morrie.

• Full Title: Tuesdays with Morrie
• When Written: 1995-96
• Where Written: Detroit, MI
• When Published: 1997
• Literary Period: Contemporary
• Genre: Memoir
• Setting: Brandeis University, late 1970s; West Newton, MA, 1995
• Climax: When Mitch visits Morrie for the final time and says goodbye
• Antagonist: Death, ALS
• Point of View: first person, narrated by Mitch

Extra Credit for Tuesdays with Morrie

Morrie on TV and Broadway. Tuesdays with Morrie was adapted into a TV movie in the winter of 1999. It was produced by Oprah Winfrey and won four Emmy awards. Albom also wrote the script for an off-Broadway production.

Unexpected worldwide success. While the book was originally published in an edition of 20,000 copies to help pay Morrie's medical bills, it has since sold over 41 million copies and been translated into 45 languages (as of 2015).

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Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

• Publication Date: October 8, 2002
• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Broadway
• ISBN-10: 076790592X
• ISBN-13: 9780767905923
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Book Review: Tuesdays with Morrie

The book’s content certainly leaves a long-time effect on the mind. It is full of lessons on how to live and many real and original experiences from a wise old professor who had seen many ups and downs of life and survived with gratitude and humility.

Tuesdays with Morrie  is a memoir by American author Mitch Albom about a series of visits Albom made to his former sociology professor Morrie Schwartz. This book talks about the real-life experience of the author Albom with his graduation Professor Morrie. The book recounts each of the fourteen visits Albom made to Schwartz, supplemented with Schwartz’s lectures, life experiences, and interspersed with both flashbacks and allusions to contemporary events. 

After his uncle dies of pancreatic cancer, Mitch abandons his failing career as a musician to become a well-paid journalist for a Detroit newspaper. He marries his beautiful wife Janine from a different religion. Mitch is an atheist person and with the fast pace of life, he almost becomes just an earning machine after becoming a journalist, screenwriter, and television/radio broadcaster.

Sixteen years after his graduation from Brandeis, Mitch feels frustrated with the life he has chosen to live and for which he had abandoned his social and personal life, friends, and acquaintances. It is an interview of his old professor on TV that makes him delve into his graduation days when his Professor was crying on his farewell day asking him to promise to keep in touch. Morrie Schwartz was Mitch’s favorite college professor at university. Though Mitch had promised to stay in touch with him, he never did. The son of Russian immigrants, Morrie’s childhood was not short of difficulties including the death of his mother and his brother’s infection with the Poliovirus. Morrie later went on to work as a researcher in a mental hospital where he learned about mental illness and how to have empathy and compassion for other people. Later in life, Morrie decided to be a sociology professor so that his teachings would influence as many people as possible. Following Morrie’s television appearance, Mitch contacts his beloved professor and travels from his home in Detroit to Morrie’s home in West Newton, Massachusetts to visit him. Not wanting to meet him more than once, Mitch ends up visiting him every Tuesday traveling a long distance out of curiosity of understanding life from his dying old professor. Morrie has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gherig’s disease, a debilitating disease, that gradually stops the neurons and muscles from working properly.

Morrie is my favorite character in the book. Despite contracting the deadly disease, Morrie is full of a positive attitude and hope towards life, celebrating every moment even after being bedridden. Mitch starts to record everything he learns from Morrie to compile a book as it was his wish too. Morrie is a loving, compassionate, and accepting older man who is counting his remaining number of days. In his lessons on Tuesdays, Morrie advises Mitch to reject the popular culture in favor of creating his own. The individualistic culture Morrie encourages Mitch to create for himself is a culture based on love, acceptance, and human goodness, a culture that upholds a set of ethical values, unlike the mores that popular culture endorses. According to Morrie, popular culture is founded on greed, selfishness, and superficiality, which he urges Mitch to overcome. Morrie also stresses that he and Mitch must accept death and aging, as both are inevitable. Morrie cries freely and often and continually encourages Mitch to do so as well. He can connect with anyone and make them feel comfortable. He makes highly professional and quite a rude TV reporter, Ted Koppel to visit him again for the next interview. He makes Mitch’s wife sing for him on which Mitch was quite surprised. Every friend and acquaintance loves to Meet Morrie. 

Mitch becomes increasingly aware of the real meaning of life which he ignored while following the popular culture of race, selfishness, and competition. Mitch evolves to become more sensitive, and less obsessed with work. At Morrie’s insistence, Mitch attempts to restore his relationship with his brother Peter who lives in Spain. Because he was starved of love and affection during his childhood, Morrie seeks it out in his old age from his family and friends. Now that he is nearing his death, Morrie feels he has reverted to figurative infancy and tries in earnest to “enjoy being a baby again.” He and Mitch often hold hands throughout their sessions together. The conversation forms the basis of friendship and guidance for Mitch and his son like affection for Morrie. Mitch’s former philosophical guide becomes the real-life coach in his later life. 

The conversations are powerful and very emotional. During their discussions (every Tuesday for the next few months) they cover many topics, including learning to accept death, loving others, and being a better human being. Morrie Schwartz appeared on Nightline because he was dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a disease that stops the neurons and muscles from working properly. As a result, Morrie’s arms, legs, and eventually even his tongue and throat muscles stop functioning. Morrie wanted to be interviewed on Nightline so that he could share some of his thoughts about life and death. With each lesson, Morrie becomes increasingly sick; during their last meeting, Morrie was bedridden and near death. As he and Mitch hug for one last time, Morrie notices Mitch is finally crying. Morrie dies a short time after. At his funeral, Mitch tries having a conversation with Morrie, as he had wanted. Mitch feels a certain naturalness and comfort to this conversation and realizes that it happens to be Tuesday. After Morrie’s death, Mitch regains contact with his brother who is battling cancer.

All the characters feel quite real and contemporary. Love, affection, and attention are required by each human being that Mitch kept ignoring throughout his busy life chasing for a better and better career. His professor’s healthy life and diseased period both make him realize the real importance of life. Morrie did not see death as the end to love and relationships. In fact, he thought that love and relationships were central to living. During their conversations, Morrie and Mitch discussed belief, death, forgiveness, life, love, and trust, among other important topics. Morrie died in November of 1995, but the lessons that he taught Mitch changed Mitch’s life and formed the basis of the memoir.

The story keeps us guessing what will happen next when Morrie’s falling health would stop him from further talking to Mitch. Every chapter is full of anticipating lessons, mesmerizing the readers about the reality of life which we often tend to ignore in our youth days.  Tuesdays with Morrie  is an important book and a notable reflection on life and mortality. It is full of gentle humor, warm relationship, love and emotional sensitivity laughter and sadness. The book’s content certainly leaves a long-time effect on the mind. It is full of lessons on how to live and many real and original experiences from a wise old professor who had seen many ups and downs of life and survived with gratitude and humility.

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Tuesdays With Morrie | Mitch Albom | Book Review

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom is the bestselling and magical chronicle of the author’s life-changing lessons with his Professor Morrie and is a self-help book that not only teaches but also touches the hearts of readers with its soulful narration and enchanting conversations. So, read Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom Book Review, Book Quotes, Book Summary, Genre, Reading Age, and buy links in this post below.

About Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom:

No. of Pages: 208

Publication Date: December 1998 by Sphere

Genre: Non Fiction, Self Help, Motivational, Memoir, Life and Wellness

Reading Age: 13 years and above

Buy From: AMAZON

Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom Book Summary:

As the cover rightly states, Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom is a book about an old man, a young man, and life’s greatest lesson. Morrie Schwartz was no superhero, no celebrity either. Rather he was a “small man who takes small steps, as if a strong wind could, at any time, whisk him up into the clouds”. And who had been a Professor when the author Mitch Albom was a student at the Brandeis University.

So, the question arises, what was it about him that made Mitch think that he was worth writing a book about? The answer to that question is that he didn’t think any such thing. Morrie’s only claim to fame had been an appearance on a show called “Nightline”. And it was through this that Mitch came to know that his old professor whom he had not met for some twenty years was dying of ALS. So, it saddened Mitch and he decided to meet him. What was initially a reunion of an old professor and his student became a final lesson on life’s complexities.

Mitch and Morrie subsequently spent the next sixteen Tuesdays together exploring many of life’s fundamental issues like Death, fear, aging, greed, marriage, family, forgiveness, society, a meaningful life. Morrie was giving his last lecture while Mitch was writing his final thesis. Even when dying Morrie was imparting his wisdom to people around him. So, he was a true “Teacher to the Last” .

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom Book Review

Things i liked:, morrie’s character:.

People see me as a bridge. I’m not as alive as I used to be, but I’m not yet dead. ..a m sort of… in-between.” I’m on the last great journey here – and people want me to tell them what to pack.” Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom Quotes

So, his appearances on TV where his way of reaching out to people all over the world and giving them hope. His mantra “When you learn how to die, you learn how to live.” was something that he wanted people to know. Morrie was a brave man, a compassionate man who knew the value of time and even in his last moments chose to make himself an example where others could see and take his lead to living fully even in the face of death like he was doing.

Mitch’s beautiful portrayal of Morrie:

Mitch has captured Morrie’s deteriorating condition, his courage, and his zest to life in a simple yet captivating way. So, the reader feels myriad emotions while reading the book from happiness to acute sorrow, from evaluating one’s own life to planning the future on Morrie’s principles.

Then the scene that especially stuck with me was the one where Morrie tells Mitch about the place where he has planned to be buried and asks him to visit, telling him to make it a Tuesday as they are “Tuesday people” .

As for talking, he has a simple solution for Mitch

After I’m dead, you talk. And I’ll listen.” Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom Quotes

Then the final class with Morrie changed Mitch and as he says,

I look back sometimes at the person I was before I rediscovered my old professor. I want to talk to that person. I want to tell him what to look out for, what mistakes to avoid. I want to tell him to be more open, to ignore the lure of advertised values, to pay attention when you loved ones are speaking, as if it were the last time you might hear them.” Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom Quotes

He also accepts that he cannot “undo” the past. But one thing that he learned from his professor was that there is no such thing as “too late” in life. Morrie was changing until the day he said goodbye!

Then this book left me wiping my tears. And left me with an acute sense loss, and of re-evaluation of my life. Also the things that we take for granted like a normal day was something that had become just wishful thinking for someone like Morrie who could not even wriggle his toes at his will!

Conclusion:

Life is short, make the most of it. “ Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom Quotes

The book, Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom deserves 5 stars out of 5. And Morrie is someone who will always remain in the memories of thousands of people to whom he gave hope and introduced them to a path of happiness and contentment. So, I respect him and hope his message reaches far and wide. Do read the book, for Morrie’s class is a success!!

So, Njkinny recommends this book highly to everyone. It is not to be missed!

Buying Links:

AMAZON.IN | AMAZON.COM

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