One of this weekend’s most interesting stories is tucked away in Canvas magazine. It’s a review of the fifth best-selling book on Amazon, Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven, which has just made it to our shores.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven is the first novel from Albom (pictured), a US-wide syndicated newspaper sports columnist and ESPN commentator. He’s also the author of the non-fiction hit Tuesdays with Morrie, an account of his conversations with a dying college professor.

Albom’s novel is about 83-year-old Eddie, a war veteran who becomes an amusement park attendant [sniff, sniff]. US sales have soared, thanks to word of mouth and good reviews. Even Time called it a “sad, sweet first novel”. But reviewers in most other countries find it too saccharine, because it’s one of those cloying, uplifting morality tales that Americans love, on the big screen as well as in books.

In her perceptive review, Canvas writer Penelope Bieder says

I reflected on a strange, emotionally intense parable about the meaning of an ordinary life that at times read like something from Readers’ Digest yet had many patches of good writing.

She concludes:

Spare and effective and often beautiful the writing may be, but the values that Albom feels the need to reiterate keep getting in the way of Eddie’s story.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven is only available in hardback - but the RRP is a fairly reasonable $39.95 for what Bieder calls an “attractive little hardback edition”. It could be worth buying, if only to see what all the fuss is about.