Tuesdays with Morrie

What it is

Mitch Albom was a sports columnist with a full calendar when he saw his old sociology professor, Morrie Schwartz, on television, talking calmly about dying of ALS. He went to visit, and then kept going back every Tuesday until the end. The book is the record of those visits: one last class with one student, and the subject is how to live.

It is short enough to read in an evening. I don't think it is meant to be read that fast.

What stayed with me

• Learning how to die is how you learn to live. Morrie doesn't treat death as the subject to avoid. Knowing the time is limited is what tells him what deserves it.
• You can decline the culture you're handed. A lot of what we chase, like more money, more status and being busy, is borrowed from the people around us. Morrie's answer is to build a small culture of your own, around the people and the work you actually care about.
• Feel it fully, then let it go. His idea of detachment isn't avoiding fear or grief. It is letting the feeling arrive completely, recognising it for what it is, and then stepping back from it.
• Forgive before it is too late. Other people, and yourself. He is clear that the second matters as much as the first.
• Giving is what makes you feel alive. He means time and attention, not things.

Why I trust it

Most books about living well are written by people in the middle of it, with something to sell. This one is a conversation with a man at the end, who has nothing left to prove and still chooses to spend his energy teaching. That is why the advice lands, even when it is advice you have heard before.

Who I'd hand it to

Anyone who has been busy for a long time and can't quite say what for.