Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Have A Little Faith by Mitch Albom

From the Goodreads description: Albom's first nonfiction book since Tuesdays with Morrie, Have a Little Faith begins with an unusual request: an eighty-two-year-old rabbi from Albom's old hometown asks him to deliver his eulogy.

Feeling unworthy, Albom insists on understanding the man better, which throws him back into a world of faith he'd left years ago. Meanwhile, closer to his current home, Albom becomes involved with a Detroit pastor--a reformed drug dealer and convict--who preaches to the poor and homeless in a decaying church with a hole in its roof.

Moving between their worlds, Christian and Jewish, African-American and white, impoverished and well-to-do, Albom observes how these very different men employ faith similarly in fighting for survival: the older, suburban rabbi embracing it as death approaches; the younger, inner-city pastor relying on it to keep himself and his church afloat.


This one was exactly what I expected, Mitch Albom is predictable. I've read his most popular books, Tuesday With Morrie, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, and For One More Day and enjoyed each one. They have all been bestsellers and, something I didn’t know, made into TV movies. (I really live in a TV/cinema void - so many books I read have been made into movies and I've not heard of most much less seen them.) So knowing going in that the story would be gentle, faith building, and leave one feeling like there is hope for the human race, I got exactly that. It must be why his books are so popular because most of us want to gently be reminded of God's love and the hope that brings.

My favorite quote from this book:
"Faith is about doing. You are how you act not just how you believe." If every person who felt some spirituality put some of it into practice in our communities, how much poverty, hunger, child abuse, and illiteracy could we relieve?

1 comment:

Melissa (Avid Reader) said...

I enjoyed this one too. I'm not a fan of his fiction, but I think his nonfiction is good. There's nothing groundbreaking, but he makes some great observations.