August | 2008 | jarvisfamily

>I had the chance to read some books over the summer, thanks to Ty taking long naps. I really enjoyed getting back into reading. I used to read a lot but haven’t in a while. Here is what I read while in Utah.

For One More Day by Mitch Albom is the story of a man who gets the chance to spend one more day with his mother, who died 8 years earlier. For One More Day takes readers to a place between life and death in a story of redemption and one man’s struggle to deal with his ghosts.

“The Five People You Meet in Heaven” Albom’s achingly moving and inspirational tale of an elderly amusement park worker who dies thinking he was a nobody on earth has stirred readers around the world. “Eddie” is killed trying to save the life of a little girl during a tragic ride accident: he wakes up in heaven to learn that the first stage is where you meet five people who were affected by your life, some of whom you might know, some you might not. Eddie’s “journey” through his life and the people he touched opens his eyes to the interconnectivity of us all.

First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes . . . a baby carriage? Isn’t that what all women want? This is the witty, heartfelt story about what happens to the perfect couple when they suddenly want different things. It’s about feeling that your life is set and then realizing that nothing is as you thought it was–and that there is no possible compromise. It’s about deciding what is most important in life, and taking chances to get it. But most of all, it’s about the things we will do–and won’t do–for love.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, translated from the original French (the book was a bestseller in France) is a tale centered on, of all things, the Cultural Revolution of China’s Chairman Mao Zedong. Anyone who takes for granted the freedom from government that Western cultures enjoy would do well to read this book. But this wonderful novel (novella really) is not about politics,except in a cursory way; nor is it a treatise on the evils of China during the reign of Chairman Mao. It is, instead, a gentle, wise and humorous tale of two teenaged friends, young boys, and of a young teenaged girl, theseamstress of the title, whose striking beauty charms them both.

John Boyne’s novel is the gripping story of two boys — one the son of a commandant in Hitler’s army and the other a Jew — who come face-to-face at a barbed wire fence that separates, and eventually intertwines their lives.

It has been ten years since twenty-one-year-old Charles MacKenzie Jr. (“Mack”) went missing. A Columbia University senior, about to graduate and already accepted at Duke University Law School, he walked out of his apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side without a word to his college roommates and has never been seen again. However, he does make one ritual phone call to his mother every year: on Mother’s Day. Each time, he assures her he is fine, refuses to answer her frantic questions, then hangs up. Carolyn’s (Mack’s sister) passionate search for the truth about her brother — and for her brother himself — leads her into a deadly confrontation with someone close to her whose secret he cannot allow her to reveal.

Timeless and entertaining, exotic yet simple, this fable breaks down the steps in the journey we all take to find the most meaningful riches in our lives. Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who dreams about finding a treasure in the pyramids of Egypt, shows how along the way we learn to trust our hearts, read seemingly inconspicuous signs, and understand that as we look to fulfill a dream, it looks to find us just the same…if we let it.

I still have a list I am trying to get through so hopefully Ty’s naps will continue.