Tuesdays With Morrie - Community Responses

Tuesdays With Morrie

Community Responses:

What you told us about the project

These are the written responses the Library has received about the project and the programs. Responses were collected on the evaluation form included in the Resource Guide. Answers may have been edited for clarity and some duplicate answers were combined.

How did you hear about the Reading: Bridge to a Wider World project?

Newspapers (Duluth News Tribune and Budgeteer) - 47 responses
Friends or co-workers - 7 responses
Bookstore or Book Club - 2 responses
At the Library - 18 responses
Through the public schools - 3 responses

I enjoy reading and like the community read concept...prompts me to read something I wouldn't normally read.

What caused you to participate?

Had already read and enjoyed the book or wanted to read it - 25 responses
Mitch Albom's appearance - 7
Wanted to participate in the community reading project - 10
It was a book club selection - 5
General interest - 8
Interest in the themes raised by this book - 12
Encouraged by someone else to participate - 5

Where did you get your copy of Tuesdays With Morrie?

Library - 19 Bookstore - 41 Home - 3 Other - 12

Gift
A friend sent it to me

Did you read and discuss the book with friends, in a book discussion group or just by yourself?

By myself - 30
Book discussion group - 15
With family or friends - 24

Were the materials in the Resource Guide helpful in your reading and understanding of the book?

Yes - 29 No - 14

How did the book affect you? (selected responses)

I work in hospice and I think this would be a good book for someone with a terminal illness. I made an effort to be friends with a family member that I wasn't friends with because the book helped me see that life is too short to hold grudges.
Very moving. My sisters and I bought the book as my mother was dying of lung/brain cancer.
I couldn't put it down, I cried. I refer to it time and again. It touches the soul.
It made me think of all its valuable life lessons - specifically what one person can do to effect positive community change.
It changed the life of several students who REFUSED to turn the book back in to me!
It made me prioritize my life!
It provided such a personal account of a beautiful story of a courageous man as he left this world for the next.
I am a teacher and was deeply moved by Morrie's affect on Mitch after all those years.
It gave me such an eye-opening about what is important in life, and how I hope I can be if I'm sick or disabled.

Why was Tuesdays With Morrie a good selection for this area-reading project? (selected responses)
The evaluation form asked if this book was a good selection. No-one answered that it was not.

We all need to love each other more and slow down the "rat" race.
It is an excellent reminder that we do make a difference in each others' lives.
In our society, we need to accept the reality of dying and learn to live.
It was a book of hope.
Very timely for me with a friend stopping chemotherapy and dying.
It gives you something to think about and causes you not to take things for granted.
It is seriously people centered - Duluth needs this. Get off sports for 10 minutes.
I think this book was a good choice because it lent itself to discussion of other topics. With our large percentage of elders, the topics of grief, caretaking and intergenerational interactions were very appropriate.
Our society needs to embrace the death process and learn and grow through it.

Do you have a title to suggest for another Reading: Bridge to a Wider World project?

The Country Doctor's Casebook by Roger MacDonald
Steps to Success by Joe Torre
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Giants in the Earth by O. E. Rolvaag
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Fool's Progress by Edward Abbey
anything by Stephen King
John Adams by David McCullough
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Nickel and dimed: on (not) getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
The Dive From Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer

Library - 19	Bookstore - 41	Home - 3	Other - 12
			Gift A friend sent it to me

5/21/07 Duluth Public Library, 520 W. Superior St., Duluth, MN 55802

5/21/07
Duluth Public Library, 520 W. Superior St., Duluth, MN 55802