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Dan’s Note: This post was written some time ago, and for some reason I never published it. It’s a short one, but about a very good book…

The story revolves around a man named Eddie. Eddie works at an amusement park called Ruby Pier. The story begins on Eddie’s 83rd birthday, about an hour before he dies trying to help a someone on a faulty ride.

What transpires during the meat of the story is Eddie’s time in Heaven. What Eddie discovers is that Heaven is not like most people imagine. Instead, when a person dies, the first thing that they experience in Heaven is interacting with five people who change their life. In Eddie’s case, the five people he meets surprise him – some he knew, others he didn’t remember or had no way of knowing.

Mitch Albom is brilliant. In a book not quite 200 pages thick, he weaves a tale of a man that is so common and ordinary, you begin to feel that he is your very own grandfather. The history of each person he encounters and how their fate was entwined with his own is a perfect example of how our lives and actions affect those around us. Although this book is fiction, it nevertheless gave me a reason to re-think what I envision Heaven to be.

I can’t wait to get my grubby little hands on a copy of his latest book.

Keli bought me “Life Expectancy” by Dean Koontz as a Christmas gift. Well, she forgot about it and gave it to me a couple of weeks ago.

Dean Koontz is one of my all-time favorite authors and I’ve read most of his books. Actually, Ian is the one who introduced me to Koontz back when he had just finished reading “Lightning”. More than anything I really like the stories and characters in his books. But after reading most of his books, it really annoyed me how they were all pretty much the same — very formulaic. Spanish style houses, with tile roofs, there’s always a dog, usually a golden retriever, in southern California. Don’t get me wrong, the stories were still very good, but in many you could skip the opening chapter or two and still know perfectly well that you didn’t miss a thing.

There have been exceptions, though, and “Life Expectancy” is definitely one of them. Whatever muse Koontz recently found, he must hold onto firmly and not let go. Not since the Christopher Snow books (”Fear Nothing” & “Seize the Night”) have I been almost physically pained to have to put the book down. The characters Dean Koontz creates are brought to life in ways that you can actually relate to.

The premise of the book is a man named Jimmy Tock who was born at the precise moment his grandfather dies, just down the hall from the maternity ward. Just before his grandfather’s death, he suddenly sits up in bed and predicts five terrible dates in the life of the grandson he’ll never meet.

If you want to read the story, but don’t want any details about later in the story, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!!

The story is told from Jimmy Tock’s point of view and the words used to describe hardships endured by him and his family, the way he describes a husband’s pain and anguish over his wife’s in surgery, the relationship a father has with his children, especially a deathly ill one, leave you feeling true sorrow for the man in between the covers of the book. The ending is rather sudden, I have to admit, and while it was an obvious ending, in hindsight, it nevertheless took me by surprise.

This book is going to be added to my mental list of ones which I can read over and over, yet still be as captivated by it as I was the first time through.