The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom

The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom is a novel about mankind’s greatest obsession: time. Some people want more, some people want less. Sometimes it moves too fast, sometimes it moves too slow.

Book Description

“From the author who’s inspired millions worldwide with books like Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven comes his most imaginative novel yet, The Time Keeper—a compelling fable about the first man on earth to count the hours.

The man who became Father Time.

In Mitch Albom’s newest work of fiction, the inventor of the world’s first clock is punished for trying to measure God’s greatest gift. He is banished to a cave for centuries and forced to listen to the voices of all who come after him seeking more days, more years. Eventually, with his soul nearly broken, Father Time is granted his freedom, along with a magical hourglass and a mission: a chance to redeem himself by teaching two earthly people the true meaning of time.

He returns to our world—now dominated by the hour-counting he so innocently began—and commences a journey with two unlikely partners: one a teenage girl who is about to give up on life, the other a wealthy old businessman who wants to live forever. To save himself, he must save them both. And stop the world to do so.

Told in Albom’s signature spare, evocative prose, this remarkably original tale will inspire readers everywhere to reconsider their own notions of time, how they spend it and how precious it truly is.” – The Time Keeper

My Thoughts

The Time Keeper is a story that really gets you to think about time in a different and more precious way. It makes you really think about things in a more insightful way, which is a true talent of the author.

This novel follows the lives of three people and their obsession with time. It all started with Dor, the original man who discovered time and how to keep track of it. This “Father Time” did it just “to know.” However, as mankind tends to do, it was taken and used as something else, and man eventually tried to control time.

Dor is punished and sentenced to thousands of years in a cave. He doesn’t age, but everyone else on Earth does. He is able to listen to everyone’s prayers about time, but eventually it becomes too much and he rarely hears any single person’s prayers or thoughts about it at all.

Two of the people he did hear are Victor and Sarah. Victor is dying, and wants more time. Sarah wants less time. She wants to speed things up, and eventually make it stop for her altogether. Dor is finally freed from the cave, if he can help two people the true meaning and value of time. Can he get to them both before it is too late? I’ll let you read this amazing book to find out.

Mitch Albom has a way of writing that draws you in, teaches your soul a life lesson, and leaves you wanting to read more of his works. I highly recommend it.

* Thank you to the publisher of The Time Keeper, Hyperion, for providing me with a copy of this book for review. All opinions expressed are my own.