Mitch Albom Introduces You to The Time Keeper

Courtesy of ABC/Hyperion

We love a good book that tugs at your heartstrings. So needless to say we’ve read all of Mitch Albom’s books. Ever since he spent his Tuesdays with Morrie, we’ve been hooked. We usually cuddle up with a cup of cocoa and some tissues and pour through the entertaining but inspirational tomes in a day. So we’re very excited that Mitch has a new offering — The Time Keeper.

We were excited to get an exclusive interview with the best-selling author about the book, in which he travels back to the world before people kept track of time. His main character actually becomes Father Time, but the protagonist must suffer for teaching people to count the minutes he’s created by living his days in a cave.

As Mitch explained what happens next, “He’s given a chance to come back to Earth during our time. And he sees what the world has become with Blackberries and iPads and digital displays. And he’s charged with finding a very young person and a very old person to see if he can teach each of them what the true meaning of time is.”

Should Father Time pull off the feat he’ll be given a reward. Mitch continued, “If he does it, then he is free of his purgatory and he’s learned his lesson. And we see if he’s learned it, and in my case as the writer, I guess we find out if I’ve learned it as well.”

That message can be summed up by a conversation that transpires in the novel. As Mitch revealed, “There’s a moment where Father Time says to this old man who’s trying to freeze himself so that he doesn’t have to die and he can come back in a couple of hundred years and live all over again, and he says, ‘You can’t do that because there’s a reason that God limits your days.’ And the question is, ‘Well, what’s the reason?’ And the answer comes back, ‘To make each one of them precious.’ And that’s the lesson that I needed to learn and that’s the lesson that I remind myself of.”

As Mitch noted the goal is to use your time to the fullest. He acknowledged, “You don’t get forever to live and you have to actually make choices or what you’re going to do with your day — are you going to spend all day watching reality TV or are you going to spend it with your family? Those kinds of choices determine the quality of your life. That’s what I have to remind myself every day and I hope people who read the book get that as well.”

Mitch’s books have positively affected millions of people to do just that over the years. But he was clear to point out that he doesn’t set out to write enlightening books. He remarked, “I don’t know if I’m trying to inspire them as much as I ask the question. Ever since the Tuesdays with Morrie experience, every book that I’ve written has been somewhat of a derivative of that experience because it was so life changing t o sit with somebody who’s was dying and see the kinds of things that matter to him at the end and are going to matter to you at the end. One of those issues was, ‘Do you have regrets? How have you lived your life? And he as 78 but he didn’t regret any of the time he had spent because he lived it the way he thought it was important to live it.  ”

The author admitted that those thoughts continue to resonate with him. “Even though that book was 15 years ago already, I’m still dealing with a lot of those same questions. So I don’t know if it’s so much to inspire people as much as just to keep on asking those same questions about what’s important in life. And time is one of those elements.”

For more details on TheTime Keeper visit Mitch Albom’s website.

Watch our interview with Mitch on our YouTube channel.