LATEST TITLES

THE NEXT PERSON YOU MEET IN HEAVEN by Mitch Albom, Sphere, £14.99 (ebook £7.99)

★★★★★

MITCH Albom, whose The Five People You Meet In Heaven rocked the world of publishing 15 years ago, again demands that you take a leap of faith with him.

Told in his trademark entrancing, artless style, the latest novel delivers the thought-provoking story of what happened to the girl spared death in the first book.

Annie, who has endured a tumultuous existence since being saved by fairground handyman Eddie, finds love, only for her new happiness to be snatched away as she takes her journey in Heaven.

Albom, who says his afterlife ‘is a wish, not a dogma’, again explores the interconnections between us all and how seemingly innocuous actions can affect the lives of others and shape their future.

His premise is that not only does every life matter, but every ending is also a beginning – we only need to open our eyes to see it. Not quite a must-read the way the first book was, but it’s close.

BRIDGE OF CLAY by Markus Zusak, Doubleday, £18.99 (ebook £9.99)

★★★★★

THE five Dunbar boys, live in a ramshackle house with a donkey in the kitchen and stacks of stolen mailboxes out front.

The brothers push each other (mentally and physically), squabble, take care of one another and roam Sydney buying records, parentless until their dad, introduced as The Murderer, turns up and asks if they’d help him build a bridge. Only Clay proves willing.

Clay is a confusing protagonist, strong but broken, quiet but emotionally deafening, and the story putters along slowly.

However, once Zusak, author of The Book Thief, starts weaving in the boys’ parents’ stories, the narrative becomes more elegant, more alluring, and his stop-start language hits all the right notes.