Book Review: Have a Little Faith

Have a Little Faith

By Mitch Albom

I've never read a Mitch Albom book before, though he has some pretty popular ones out there (i.e. Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven). But I saw this at Wal-Mart a couple of weeks ago and thought it looked like a fun, easy read so I picked it up.

It's a true story about the author and two very different, but also very similar, men: one is an elderly rabbi (Jewish) that has asked Albom to deliver his eulogy when he dies and the other is an inner-city drug-dealer-turned-pastor (Christian) with a broken-down church with a hole in the roof to preach in. This book is about Albom's interactions with these two "men of the cloth" and the life lessons that he learns from them.

At first I was skeptical. I didn't like the fact that Albom was profiting from these life stories, like he was taking advantage of their friendships, and I didn't like the light in which he painted them sometimes. But the more I read, the more I enjoyed it, and the more I came to understand Albom's writing style - yes, sometimes he writes things that aren't the nicest way you could word something about an individual - but he is being honest about the way he personally felt at that time, and I think you need to be honest in your writing if you want it to be believable.

I would recommend this book to anyone. It's not that long - if you have three hours or so to just sit and read you could probably read the whole thing in one sitting. I like books that inadvertently make me think about my own life, my values, etc. This was one of those books. It is interesting to me that though I belong to a different church than the two discussed in the book and the specifics of our religions are very different, our belief in how to treat others, the importance of service, and the worth of souls, is the same.

Because of this book and The Hole in the Roof foundation that Albom started, donations from around the world came in and they have finally been able to repair the roof. Construction began on November 23 of this year and a celebration of its completion took place just a few days ago on December 9th. There is a short video on the church's website of the occasion that you can view by clicking on the picture of the famous church at the right.

Next Project: The Sorceress (third book in the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series)