Fab Five: Basketball, Trash Talk, the American Dream

ANNOTATION

Fans of the New York Times bestseller A Season on the Brink will savor this in-depth look at Michigan's Fab Five, the all-freshmen starting basketball team that wowed the country and stormed through the 1992 NCAA college basketball tournament. 16 pages of photos.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

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 20 years before. 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.

SYNOPSIS

In this inspiring, life-affirming story, award-winning sportswriter Mitch Albom recounts how he renewed his warm relationship with his revered

FROM THE CRITICS

Kirkus Reviews

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 partof 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.'

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

I love this book. I've been telling all my friends 'you have to read this.' Mitch Albom was given a wonderful gift from his teacher Morrie Schwartz and now he has the great pleasure of auditing the same class. This is a true story that shines and makes you forever warmed by its afterglow. — Amy Tan

A beautifully written book of geat clarity and wisdom that lovingly captures the simplicity beyond life's complexities. — M. Scott Peck