Tudesdays+with+Morrie

Book Review by Jinho Park __Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, A young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson__ is a non-fiction book by Mitch Albom, the author of the international best-seller __The Five People You Meet in Heaven__ and __For One More Day__. Mitch Albom was born in 1958, and now he lives with his wife, Janine, in Michigan. He has various jobs; he is not only a writer but also a newspaper columnist, a journalist, a broadcaster and a play writer. In the book he teaches us the true meaning of human being's life through the real life of his favorite professor, Morrie Schwartz. The story takes place in Waltham, Massachusetts. Morrie Schwartz, a professor of Brandeis University suddenly finds out that he **has** Lou Gehrig's disease, which is **a** terminal disease. He knows he will die in few years; nevertheless, he decides to teach students the value of humans life and death at home on every Tuesday. Surprisingly, he thinks h**e's** very lucky because he can still teach people and has enough time to say good-bye to friends. Until he dies in the summer of 1994, he and his students talk about the various philosophical topics, which **they** can not learn from the school text books: defining love, marriage, forgiveness, regret, work, society, family, and death. My favorite topic over all of those is death. On the fourth Tuesday, Mitch asks Morrie how to prepare for death. Then Morrie says "The truth is . . . once you learn how to die, you learn how to live." Through the Buddhist philosophy, he tells Mitch that you should know how to live before learning how to die. This passage also implies to me that we should do our best at every single work that I am facing now. In this book, there are many symbols through out whole chapters. However, my favorite symbol is Morrie's bed. On page 131, Morrie says "when you're in bed, you're dead". We can see Morrie on his bed only on the last Tuesday, when he dies. Therefore, Morrie's bed symbolizes death. Since I read this book, my thoughts about death and life changed thoroughly; I could realize the necessity and the true meaning of death. This book also can provide you sufficient knowledge about the world and life. Therefore, I strongly recommend this worthy book to people, especially who are having a fatal disease like Morrie Schwartz and who want to know more about their lives.