Full of great advice. It's a really short book with truly something for everyone. Besides the advice Morrie gives us through his weekly chats with the author as he rapidly declines with ALS, he's an inspiration in terms of his dying gracefully. Perhaps his most important lesson is that dying gracefully requires satisfaction and fulfillment while we're able bodied - so live life to the fullest, each and every day. One nice piece of advice he gives us that a married couple need to share values, the most important of which is that both agree on the importance of their marriage. He says something really warming too about aging. He says the beauty of being old is that you know what it's like to be young, and there are ways you can act young, even in the body of an old man. He says, "Think of all I can be! I am every age up to my own!" Thanks to my friend Audri who bought me the book.

More about Morrie here.

Occasionally a little preachy, but a very good, short read.

I liked this book a lot. It's the story of Mitch who sees his old college professor on TV and discovers that his old friend is dying. Mitch begins to visit Morrie every Tuesday and they chat like in the old days. Mitch is now taking his last class from his professor. Morrie talks about life, marriage, death, aging, faith, etc... During all this Mitch changes, he loses his "tough guy" persona and he starts accepting himself. His fast paced career and the things that had been so important before are re-evaluated. He repairs his marriage and learns the influence of the people he keeps in his life, he loses the less trust worthy characters.

It's a simple book. A tribute to a friend and mentor who helped one man regain his life. I think most will appreciate its message and the tenderness of the relationship.

I liked this book, but found it too good to be totally true. It was almost too cloying and over the top cute. I would have liked to meet Morrie just to see for myself what he was like. Mitch is a good writer and I thoroughly enjoy his columns in the Free Press, even when it is about sports. I do admire him for spending his Tuesdays with his friend Morrie.

I really liked the narrative style of this book, similar to the Sound and the Fury. Multiple narrators, telling the same story from different viewpoints, adds a lot of complexity and nuance to the story, even while it makes it difficult to follow along. A novel like this really has to be read more than once to really take advantage of the complexity.
An interesting story. I didn't like a single one of the characters- they're all greedy and selfish or stupid and petty. Cash was probably the only redeemable one. I also disliked the constant repetition of particular phrases, which seem to override everything else the character has to say.

Bone chilling at times. A grotesque picture (as only Faulkner could imagine) of a Southern family that destroys each and every one of its members in either physical or psychological ways... or both. It reads quickly and is simply gorgeous at times. Well worth the discomfort brought on by cement poured over flesh.

As I Lay Dying

This is a summary that I copied from the library:
“One of William Faulkner's finest novels, As I Lay Dying was originally published in 1930, and remains a captivating and stylistically innovative work. The story revolves around a grim yet darkly humorous pilgrimage, as Addie Bundren's family sets out to fulfill her last wish: to be buried in her native Jefferson, Mississippi, far from the miserable backwater surroundings of her married life. Told through multiple voices, it vividly brings to life Faulkner's imaginary South, one of the great invented landscapes in all of literature, and is replete with the poignant, impoverished, violent, and hypnotically fascinating characters that were his trademark.”

My opinion of this book is not quite so high!! It was a book I had to read in college and then, again, when my book club picked it. I thought that I might enjoy the book the second time around now that I was more “mature.” However, that didn’t happen. As the young man at the library put it when I was checking it out: “Oh, you’re going to read As I Die Reading!”

I much prefer Faulkner in shorter doses. His short stories are great.