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The Five People You Meet in Heaven – Mitch Albom

The Five People You Meet in Heaven I must admit, I may have teared up a few times when reading this book. It really is something special and quite thought provoking. It is quite a quick read, not only because it is short, but because it is so easy to get into it, hard to put down and get enough of it. Nothing about this book is really predictable. The beginning really hits you, for it starts at the end, to some extent. The chapters proceed on from that moment, where the protagonist meets his 5 people in heaven, and find out all he needs to know from them and why they are the ones in his heaven and not others. Truly an emotional text that will leave you with an opened mind and not quite satisfies with the fact that it is finished. A must read when one is feeling down or during long autumn evenings with a cup of hot tea, coffee, or hot chocolate.

I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads – because well I thought it was great.

Quotes that stood out;
“Every life has one true – love snapshot” (10)
“that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life on earth.” (37)
“Fairness, does not govern life and death.” (50)
“Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know.” (51)
“All parents damage their children.” (109)
“You have peace, when you make it with yourself.” (118)
“The old darkness has taken a seat along-side him.” (138)
“Lost love is still love” (184)

A Caribbean Mystery – Agatha Christie

A Caribbean Mystery clearly a mystery by the ever so classic Agatha Christie – I do really recommend this book, or any other. It is one of the few Miss Marple Mysteries, who is the protagonist in the book. In this novel, she is in the West Indies, a series of Islands taking a break, as a grandmother in need of more sun than Southern England offers should. She is offered to see a snapshot of a murder, but she unfortunately does not, and after this the nice man who offered her this, is murdered.

This is a book full of suspects and questions urging you to read more. It does have a slow start, yet once past this it is hard to put down. The text is only some 200 pages, therefore not too much of a strenuous read, and great for long plane flights or bus rides.

This book received 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

A few interesting quotes from the book:
“The place looked like an earthly paradise” (52)
“uneasiness of his that had been so nebulous was now becoming tangible.” (56)
“Men can be extraordinarily obtuse” (91)
“Conversations are always dangerous, if you have something to hide” (136)

A Murder of Quality – John le Carré

A Murder of Quality – a murder mystery of sorts by John le Carré set in England some time after the Second World War. An interesting text, that really keeps you anticipating wanting to find put who the murderer actually is. All the characters are introduced and it is one of them, despite the trails leading to others. With that said, it is definitely not one of those predictable mysteries that has features of dramatic irony within, where the readers know who killed who and where and when this happened well before the characters in the novel, and this book differs from that stereotype significantly. When I began reading this book, it was hard for me to keep up with the characters because dependent on which they were with they would either be going by frirs or second names. However, this book is a reasonably quick read, mysteries can be heavy and and lengthy, yet this one is only 180 pages.

I gave this text 3 out of 5 star on Goodreads.

Some quotes worth noting:
“The value of intelligence depends on it’s breading” (16)
“multilateral images of saints were clear in every sad detail of their defacement, wretched figures, their purposes lost, with no eyes to see the changing world” (66)
“For a spy must hunt while he is hunted, and the crowd is his estate.” (96)
“London’s architectural schizophrenia” (126)
“there are some of us… who are nothing, who are so labile that we astound ourselves; we’re the chameleons” (177)

How to Fall in Love – Cecelia Ahern

How to Fall in Love truly is a heart warming book by Cecelia Ahern (also the author of P.S. I Love You). The title gives off the feeling that it will be one of those advice books, which it quite in fact is not. Despite this being a work of fiction however, it gives off a reasonable representation on how love really is. It doesn’t give the false ideology of love that so many romantic fiction novels do. Now when putting my mind too it, I did read this novel in two days, yes it is 416 pages but it is do-able, and therefore making it a reasonably quick read. Despite this book clearly being about love, as the many others by this same author, they are quite realistic. This text featured a protagonist that had just divorced her husband, and the second protagonist, is quite an interesting character and the further one reads the more you get into their lives of up and down moments full of plot twists and moments of fear. A really hard to put down book, with a very satisfying ending.

I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

A few quotes that provoked thought and stood out:
“the blankness before me mirroring my creative flow” (13)
“and now my love affair with the dream was over” (63)
“you can’t sit on your couch at home and expect to fall in love” (226)