The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Mitch Albom
 The book starts with an elderly man named Eddie who works as the head of maintenance at an amusement park called Ruby Pier. Eddie is able to perform this job despite leg injuries he received as a soldier during World War II. On Eddie's birthday, one of the amusement park rides malfunctions because of a damaged cable and stops halfway through the ride. Two of the staff at Ruby Pier are able to rescue the passengers on the ride and then release the ride's cart not knowing that there is a little girl under it. Eddie attempts to save the girl who was sitting under a roller coaster ride that one of the carts was about to fall on. Eddie then finds himself awake and uninjured and realizes that he feels young and much more energetic. He meets a man dubbed as "The Blue Man" who had worked at Ruby Pier's freak show and whose real name is Joseph Corvelzchik. Through their conversation, Eddie finds out that he is dead, has gone to heaven and has to meet five people who significantly impacted his life. He also finds out that he feels so much younger because he will feel the way he felt when these people came into his life. Eddie asks why Joseph, whom he does not know, is his first person and Joseph informs Eddie that he died when Eddie ran across the street as a child and caused Joseph to wreck his own car. From this, Eddie learns his first lesson which is that there are no random events in life and all people are connected in some way. The second person that Eddie meets is his former captain from the army who Eddie finds sitting in a tree in a Philippine rainforest. The captain reminds Eddie of their time together as prisoners of war in a forced labor camp. Their group escaped after a lengthy period of time and burned the camp. Eddie remembers that he had seen a shadow running from the hut that he was setting on fire although he had never found out who the person was. The captain confesses that he was the one who shot Eddie in the leg to prevent Eddie from chasing the shadow in the fire. This saved Eddie's life while leaving him with the lifelong injury. The captain later died by a landmine while scouting ahead during the escape, saving the lives of the group. Eddie learns his second lesson about the importance of people's willingness to make sacrifices for others. The scene changes and Eddie finds himself outside a diner where he meets a well dressed woman named Ruby. Ruby tells Eddie that she had once worked as a waitress at the diner and explains that Ruby Pier was named after her by her husband Emile who built it in tribute to her. Emile was wounded while fighting a fire that burned much of Ruby Pier and later died from failing health. Ruby confesses that she picked the diner because that was where she had met Emile and wanted the diner to be a refuge for anyone who had ever been hurt in any way by Ruby Pier. Eddie's father, who had been a very harsh and abusive man, is also at the diner. Ruby teaches Eddie to release his anger and forgive his father for all the trouble and hurt he had caused. Eddie now awakens in a room with several doors. Behind each of the doors there is wedding from a different culture and Eddie meets his late wife, Marguerite, in one of the weddings. They spend an extended period together, moving from one wedding to the next and catching up on all the things they had not been able to share since Marguerite's death. They remember their own wedding and in the end, Marguerite teaches Eddie that love is never lost in death. When Eddie awakens to a new scene, he sees children playing along a riverbed and a young Asian girl named Tala comes up to him. Tala reveals that she was the little girl from the hut that Eddie set on fire. The girl shows Eddie the burns that she suffered from the fire. She hands Eddie a stone and tells him to rub the burns off. Eddie starts to scrape off the injuries he had inflicted on her and soon Tala is free of the scars. Eddie believes that he failed to save the little girl from the amusement park and remembers feeling the girl's hands in his just before his death but Tala says that it was her hands that Eddie had felt as she pulled him safely up to heaven. In reality, Eddie did manage to save the girl at Ruby Pier. Tala teaches Eddie that his life was not for nothing and that its purpose was to protect children at Ruby Pier through his care for the safety of the rides. In this way, he also atoned for causing Tala's death. In the end, it shows that Eddie's heaven was the Stardust Band Shell, where he met Marguerite. He is also one of the five people to be met by the girl whose life he saved when she dies.