As a new Kindle-fan I suppose I’m an easy target just now. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then you’ve been missing a lot of posts on this blog lately!) Besides all the free classics I’ve been downloading, I also keep getting suggestions from Big Sister Amazon (‘Big Brother Amazon’ just doesn’t sound right, does it?)… And not all of these deserve to be mocked; so I guess I’ll just have to keep tabs so that I don’t let my bill run up too high!
Yesterday I downloaded my most costly Kindle-book so far (not that it was really expensive), in spite of never having heard of it before – nor of the author. It turned out a little gem, though:
The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom.
(If someone is thinking “how could she not have heard of him?” please remember I’m Swedish, not American!)
The book is a sort of modern fable, connecting the fates of two very different people in our own time with that of the first man ever in human history to start measuring time. It also involves the myths of Father Time, and the Tower of Babel.
Three other books came to mind for me while reading it: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Momo (or The Men in Grey) by Michael Ende, and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. If you enjoyed those, my guess is that you will also love Albom’s The Time Keeper. Anyway, I did - so no regrets about buying it.
On the surface, it has the simplicity of a fairy tale, while under the surface it digs deep into the very essence of our questions about life, death and meaning. And, of course – Time.
Quotes:
There are as many expressions with “time” as there a minutes in a day. But once, there was no word for it at all. Because no one was counting.
…
As mankind grew obsessed with its hours, the sorrow of lost time became a permanent hole in the human heart.
…
He was doing what man does when left with nothing. He was telling himself his own life story.
…
A heart weighs more when it splits in two; it crashes in the chest like a broken plane.
…
Sitting high above the city, Father Time realized that knowing something and understanding it were not the same thing.
5 comments:
Although I have heard about this book, I have not read it (yet). "Momo" was among my favourite books when I was a child, as many others by Michael Ende.
i have never heard of him either, i like all of the quotes, especially the last one. and i like the book cover. i to am getting suggestions from Sister Amazon, for once i love my email suggestions and look forward to the two emails per day
When I looked Mitch Albom up in Wikipedia it seemed like he was so famous I should have known about him! Actually 'Tuesdays With Morrie' does sound familiar to me as a film title, but I don't think I ever saw it and I wouldn't have been able to say it was also a book or who wrote it.
I also love Die Unendliche Geschichte - The Never Ending Story. I have that in original German hardcover edition, printed in red and green.
I can thoroughly recommend -
The Five People You Meet in Heaven and Tuesdays with Morrie as well. (Click on names for my reviews).
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