原作となった小説「世界の中心で、愛をさけぶ」は、2001年4月の発売以降「泣ける」と話題になり異例のロングセラーを続け、2004年3月現在、発行部数は171万部を突破。トーハンの文芸部門ランキングでは、2003年6月以降35週連続1位を記録しており、堂々のNo.1ベストセラーとなっている。 主人公は朔太郎という名の、地方都市に住む高校2年生。物語は、アキという名の同級生の恋人の死から始まる。そして生前の彼女との思い出を回想するように、二人の出会い、放課後のデート、恋人の墓から遺骨の一部を盗んだ祖父の哀しくユニークな話、二人だけの無人島への旅、そして彼女の発病・入院、病院からの脱出、空港での彼女の死までのストーリーが語られ、その中で朔太郎は、自分の「生」の充足が彼女との出会いから始まっていたことに気づく……。 初恋の相手アキの死による「喪失感」、そしてアキのいない世界で朔太郎の「魂の彷徨（ほうこう）」が描かれる、切なくもストレートな純愛ストーリー。

On the verge of giving up--anchored to dreams that never came true and to people who have long since disappeared from their lives--Van Booy's characters walk the streets of these stark and beautiful stories until chance meetings with strangers force them to face responsibility for lives they thought had continued on without them.

THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN is a wonderfully moving fable that addresses the meaning of life, and life after death, in the poignant way that made TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE such an astonishing book. The novel's protagonist is an elderly amusement park maintenance worker named Eddie who, while operating a ride called the 'Free Fall', dies while trying to save a young girl who gets in the way of a falling cart that hurtles to earth. Eddie goes to heaven, where he meets five people who were unexpectedly instrumental in some way in his life. While each guide takes him through heaven, Eddie learns a little bit more about what his time on earth meant, what he was supposed to have learned, and what his true purpose on earth was. Throughout there are dramatic flashbacks where we see scenes from his troubled childhood, his years in the army in the Philippines jungle, and with his first and only love, his wife Marguerite. THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN is the perfect book to follow TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE. Its compellingly affecting themes and lyrical writing will fascinate Mitch Albom's huge readership.

A dazzling novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate love affair endures across a sea of time and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap, and it is Audrey Niffenegger's cinematic storytelling that makes the novel's unconventional chronology so vibrantly triumphant. An enchanting debut and a spellbinding tale of fate and belief in the bonds of love, The Time Traveler's Wife is destined to captivate readers for years to come.