Have a Little Faith: A true story - Softcover

With Have a Little Faith, Mitch Albom returns to nonfiction for the first time since Tuesdays with Morrie was published 12 years ago.

His new book begins with a strange request: an 82-year-old man asks Mitch to deliver the eulogy at his funeral. But not just any man. A clergyman, a man of the cloth, Mitch's lifelong rabbi. The man who sends people off to heaven, now wants the author to do it for him.

This begins a journey that spans eight years, in which Mitch, feeling totally unqualified for the eulogy request, insists on getting to know the man behind the robes and the pulpit, even as he slowly decays in his old age. Mitch explores the human side of the people who believe, and examines why people believe in those people. He and "The Reb" (as the teenagers nicknamed him) discuss numerous topics that perplex modern man: how to be righteous in a world that isn't; how a cleric keeps from growing cynical; intermarriage; atheism; the "us"and "them"of religion; war; heaven; what happens when a man of God begins to doubt God.
The visits inspire Mitch - a self described "fallen"member of his faith - to reexamine his own feelings, and to explore a world totally different than the middle-class suburban temple he knew as a child. He becomes involved with a poor, struggling black church in downtown Detroit that has a huge hole in its roof where rain comes pouring in. The pastor there is a reformed criminal who came out of prison and turned his life over to God. In getting to know him and his congregation, Mitch realizes how similar faith can be even in settings that couldn't be more different.
The book, which takes a different approach than most books on faith, unfolds much like Tuesdays with Morrie; a premise at the beginning, and a series of visits leading to the end of a life. It weaves through America and its churches and synagogues, the bonds that we form and the clerics we ignore until we suddenly need them. The book ends with the death of a beloved man, and Mitch's words at his funeral, words he never thought he would be speaking.
This is a book about life and faith, about losing belief and finding it again. It is one man's journey, but, by the end, it is everyone's story.

Mitch Albom is an author, playwright, and screenwriter who has written seven books, including the
international bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie, the bestselling memoir of all time. His first novel, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, was an instant number-one New York Times bestseller that has since sold more than six million copies worldwide. For One More Day, his second novel, was also a #1 New York Times bestseller. Both books were made into acclaimed TV films. Mitch also works as a columnist and a broadcaster, and serves on numerous charitable boards. He lives with his wife, Janine, in Michigan.