Marley & Me - By John Grogan

Synopsis from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marley_and_me:

Marley & Me is a The New York Times best seller autobiographical book by the journalist John Grogan. It portrays his and his family's life during the thirteen years that they lived with their Labrador Retriever, Marley, and the relationships and lessons from this period.

Marley himself is portrayed, in line with his American Labrador lineage, as a highly strung, boisterous, and somewhat uncontrolled dog. He is strong, powerful, endlessly hungry and eager to be active, often destructive of their property (completely without malice) or otherwise embarrasses them, and routinely fails to "get the idea" of what humans expect of him. At one point the comment is made, perhaps partly in jest, that mental illness might be a plausible explanation for his behavior. However his acts and behaviors are forgiven since it is clear that he has a heart of gold and is merely living within his nature.

The strong contrast between the problems and tensions caused by his neuroses and behavior, and the undying devotion, love and trust shown towards the human family as they themselves have children and grow up to accept him for what he is, and their grief when he finally dies in old age, form the backdrop for the biographical material of the story.

Excerpt:

In the days immediately after we buried Marley, the whole family went silent. The animal that was the amusing target of so many hours of conversation and stories over the years had become a taboo topic. We were trying to return our lives to normal, and speaking t of him only made it harder. Collen in particular could not bear to hear his name or see his photos. Tears would well in her eyes and she would clench her fists and say angrily, "I don't want to talk about him!"...

It was an amazing concept that I was only now, in the wake of his death, fully absorbing: Marley as mentor. As teacher and role model . Was it possible for a dog- any dog, but especially a nutty, wildly uncontrollable one like ours - to point humans to the things that really mattered in life? I believed it was. Loyalty. Courage. Devotion. Simplicity. Joy. And the things that did not matter, too. A dog has no use for fancy cars or big homes or designer clothes. Status symbol mean nothing to him. A water logged stick will do just fine. A dog judges others not by their colour or creed or class but by who they are inside., A dog doesn't care if you are rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give him your heart and he will give you his. It was really quite simple, and yet we humans, so much wiser and more sophisticated, have always had trouble figuring out what really counts and what does not. As I wrote that farewell column to Marley, I realized it was all right there in front of us., if only we opened our eyes, Sometimes,m it took a dog with bad breath,m worse manners, and pure intentions to help us see.

Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson, by Mitch Albom

Synopsis from http://www.iblist.com/:
Most of us, at some point in our schooling, have had a teacher who had a major impact on our thinking and the way we've lived our lives. What a treat would it be now, all these years later, to reacquaint ourselves with that treasure advisor, to learn again those lessons he or she shared when we were young. Mitch Albom was given that opportunity. He spent several months regularly visiting his college professor, Morrie Schwartz, during the elder man's final year of life. Tuesdays with Morrie is Albom's best-selling tribute to the man who gave him so much.

Excerpt:
When Morrie was with you, he was rweally wqith you. He looked you straight in the eye, and he listened as if you were the only person in the world. How much better would pepole get along if thweir first encounter each day were like this - instead of a grumble from a waitress or a bus driver or a boss?

"I believe in being fully present, " Morrie said. "That means you should be with the person you're with. When I'm talking to you now, Mitch, I try to keep focused only on what is going on between us. I am not thinking about something we said last week. I am not thinking of what's coming up this FridayI am not thinking about doing anotther Koppel show, or about what medications I'm taking.

"I am talking to you. I am thinking about you."

I remeber how he used to teach this idea in the Group Process class back iat Brandeis. I had scoffed back then, thinking this was hardly a lesson plan for a university course. Learning to pay attention?> How important could that be? I now know it is more important than almost everything they taught us in college.

Morrie motioned for my hand, and as I gave it to him, I felt a surge of guilt. Here was a man who, if he wanted, could spend every waking moment in self-;pity, feeling his body for decay, counting his breaths. So many people with far smaller problems are so self-absorbed, their eyes glaze over if you speak for more than thirty seconds. They already have something else in mind - a friend to call, a fax to send, a lover they're daydreaming about. They only snap back to full attention when you finish talking, at which point they say "Uh-huh" or "Yeah, really" and fake their way back to the moment.

"Part of the problem, Mitch, is that everyone is in such a hurry,"Morrie said. "People haven't found meaning in their lives, so they're running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house, the next job. Then they find those things are empty, too, and they keep running."

Once you start running, I said, it's hard to slow yourself down.

"Not so hard," he said, shaking his head. "Do you know what I do? When someone wants to get ahead of me in traffic - when I used to be able to drive - I would raise my hand..."

He tried to do this now, but the hand lifted weakly, only six inches.

"... I would raise my hand, as if I was going to make a negative gesture, and then I would wave and smile. Instead of giving them the finger, you let them go, and you smile.

"You know what? A lot of times they smiled back.

"The truth is, I don't have to be in that much of a hurry with my car. I would rather put my energies into people."

He did this better than anyone I'd ever known. Those who sat with him saw his eyes go moist when they spoke about something horrible, or crinkle in delight when he told him a really bad joke. He was always ready to openly display the emotion so often missing from my baby boomer generation. We are great at small talk:"What do you do?" "Where do you live?" But really listening to someone - without trying to sell them something, pick them up, recruit them, or get some kind of status in return - how often do we get this anymore? I believe m,any visitors in the last few months of Morrie's life were drawn not because of the attention they wanted to pay to him but because of the attention he paid to them. Despite his personal pain an d decay, this little old man listened the way they always wanted someone to listen.

I told him he was the father everyone wishes they had.

"Well," he said, closing his eyes, "I have some experience in that area..."