The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Author:  Mitch Albom

Killed in a tragic accident at a seaside amusement park while trying to save a little girl, Eddie, an elderly man who believes that he had lived an uninspired life, awakens in the afterlife, where he discovers that heaven consists of having five people, acquaintances and strangers, explain the meaning of one's life.

Tuesdays with Morrie:

Author:  Mitch Albom

In early 1995, Mitch Albom -- award-winning sportswriter, NY Times bestselling author, radio talk show host, television commentator -- turned on "Nightline." There on the screen was his former college professor and mentor, Morrie Schwartz, whom Mitch had not spoken to since graduating from college and embarking on a relentless drive to succeed. In his soft tones Morrie was talking to Ted Koppel about impending death -- his own.

Moved, and shamed by his own silence, Mitch flew to Massachusetts to visit Morrie -- and came back every Tuesday until Morrie's disease finally took him from this life. Every Tuesday they talked -- about love, money, commitment, spirit, what most people spend their lives thinking and doing and what really matters in the world. And as Morrie's time grew short, he gave Mitch one final, lasting gift: The wisdom to see his own life as something different than the accretion of fame, money, and success.

"Tuesdays with Morrie" is Mitch Albom's extraordinary chronicle of their time together, a book filled with laughter, sadness, joy and peace. Each chapter is a different Tuesday's conversation, interspersed with brief vignettes about Morrie's life journey as well as Mitch's. Like The Road Less Travelled, this is spirituality literature for grown-ups.

Life of Pi: A Novel

The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates fromIndia to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.
The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is it more true?

The Secret Life of Bees

After her "stand-in mother," a bold black woman named Rosaleen, insults the three biggest racists in town, Lily Owens, whose life has been defined by the tragic death of her mother, joins Rosaleen on a journey toTiburon, South Carolina, where they are taken in by three black, bee-keeping sisters who show them the true meaning of love and family.

The Lovely Bones

Alice Sebold's luminous first novel--one of the most celebrated literary debuts of recent seasons--that builds out of a family's grief the most hopeful and joyful of stories.