‘Twice’ author Mitch Albom’s favorite books inspire his own writing
Can you summarize the book in a few sentences so they know? Yeah, it’s a Twice is the story of a guy named Alfie who discovers when he’s a kid that he has the magical ability to do everything in his life twice. But the kicker is he has to live with the consequences of the second try. He can’t go back and try again and again and again. So whatever happens the second time, that’s it. And he goes through his life, you know, mostly fixing his embarrassing childhood mistakes and teenage embarrassments. And then when he becomes a man and falls in love, he discovers the one caveat to the power is that it doesn’t work with love. In fact, it kind of works in the reverse. If you should change your mind with someone who’s in love with you and maybe go and try somebody else, then that person can never love you again. And at a very critical moment in his life, he has to make a very consequential choice about his love life and second chances. So, I’m just curious like how much of Alfie because of his musical backstory is you in a way. Um, most of the embarrassments that Alfie goes through are are mine. I didn’t have to make up too many of those. There was a moment where um I tried to talk to a girl I had a crush on in uh junior high school and knocked a glass of milk into her lap and um all I could think of to say was, “Look at that.” And and then walked away. And uh I thought, well, I can’t make that up any better. So, I just threw that in a book. And there was an embarrassing makeout party when I was in fifth or sixth grade uh where we all went into the closets and you know, we sat there for six or seven minutes. Uh and and uh I tried to uh kiss. We were the girl and I were trying to kiss, but it was so dark that I just banged my head against her head and and she said, “Ow.” Um, and that was the my the prelude to my first kiss. So, a lot of the embarrassments um that Alfie had were mine. The slicker stuff that he does later uh was fiction. So, you are no stranger to like magical realism. The romance aspect you are newer to, right? You’ve written a love story. Tuesdays with Mory is a love story, but in this romantic way, is this why did you want to do that now? Well, I think honestly, Lindsay, like I I tend to write thematically more than plotwise. Uh, I always sort of think of what the theme is that I want to do first and then I create a story about it. Tuesdays with Mory obviously was a true story and I was just trying to tell what happened. But the way that Tuesdays with my breaks down every week is kind of a different subject that we discuss. That’s sort of how my writing career has gone after Tuesdays with my you know I guess maybe I sort of think like that. And so the five people you meet in heaven for example, I didn’t set out to write a story about five people you meet in heaven. I set out to write a story about people who don’t matter, who think they don’t matter and who think that they’re nobodyies and whatever. And I wanted to show there’s no such thing as a nobody. Everybody touches somebody. Everybody affects somebody. That was my theme. And then I said, what can I come up with to, you know, illustrate that theme? And I ended up inventing a guy who goes to heaven, meets five people, and finds out that how much his life mattered. Um, same thing with Stranger in the Lifeboat, for example. A couple books ago, I wanted to write a book about help, you know, and how we’re always asking for help, but yet sometimes help’s right in front of us and we don’t take it, you know. Uh, and so then I came up with the idea of people in a lifeboat who were screaming to stay alive and then somebody who thinks he says he’s God washes into the boat and they don’t believe that he’s God, you know. So, it’s more that. And with this book, I wanted to write about love. You know, I’ve written a I’ve had love stories within my books. Five people in heaven has a wonderful love story and and the little liar has a wonderful love story and a lot of the books have love stories within them, you know. Uh, but I wanted the book to be about love and the way we don’t always appreciate it when we have it and um, and how you come to appreciate it as you get older. So, it was really that it was really like I wanted to write a story about love and then I came up with the device to tell it. Do you read a lot of romance books? No. No. And I didn’t read a lot of them before this either. um because I know that it’s a big genre now and uh I didn’t want to sort of uh fall into, you know, oh, it’s another one in that genre, you know. Um I wanted to bring something hopefully fresh to it. So, I thought it would be better if I stayed away from uh reading that. Um, I just sort of it’s it’s my my stab at a at a romance story and whether it’s any good or not, you know, everyone else will decide. If you had you have a whole day to read, what is your perfect setting? Where are you? Oh, what are you doing? There’s got to be water somewhere. Uh, either a river, a brook, an ocean. Uh so it sets that kind of background noise that blocks out everything else and uh and it’s outside you know somewhere outside and something and some some kind of and this they have to invent some kind of thing to sit in that your back doesn’t after a certain amount of time go okay that’s enough you know because the one thing that stops me from reading all day long is usually my back you know, of all things, it’s not boredom, it’s not my eyes, it’s what it’s my back says, you know, got to we got to move. We got to get up. And then when you try to read when you’re standing up, it’s not the same thing, whatever. So, some really comfortable chair or hammock or whatever, water in the background, and uh and about 70 one°. That sounds amazing. I also want that. Let me know if you find it.
Mitch Albom loves reading books that can help inspire his own writing.
“As I writer, I read for pleasure, but I also read to learn how others are doing it, to witness their art, to be inspired,” the “Tuesdays with Morrie” author tells Page Six, adding, “the books I love most are ones where the writing stays with me, with the wordcraft leaves me smiling.”
Albom’s newest book, “Twice” — which came out Tuesday — follows a man named Alfie who learns as a child he has the magical ability to do everything in his life twice. The caveat is that he has to live with the consequences of the second outcome and it doesn’t work on love.
Read more at https://pagesix.com/2025/10/07/style/twice-author-mitch-albom-shares-his-favorite-books/
#mitchalbom #twice #books
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