Mitch Albom

"For One More Day," the novel by Mitch Albom -- the sportswriter who became a publishing phenomenon with the memoir "Tuesdays With Morrie" -- is now a movie with the instructive title "Oprah Winfrey Presents: Mitch Albom's 'For One More Day.' " We are somewhere past mere fiction here and into the realm of branded Experience.

Mitch Albom has a new book out -- well, not really a book, but a commencement speech in book form. And not in traditional book form, but as an e-book, published exclusively through Amazon.com's Kindle reader. "Commencement Speech to His Nephew's Graduating Class: May 30, 2008, Nice France" went on sale Thursday for 99 cents. It won't be a money maker for Albom -- proceeds are being donated to a Detroit-based charity for the homeless -- but it does offer a test for the digital device that has created a great debate about the future of books and great speculation over how much the Kindle is part of that future.

There's a new chapter being written in the Cult of Celebrity handbook -- one with no spoiled athletes, playgirl heiresses or adulterous movie stars involved. It's taking place in the unlikely world of newspapers, a field with so few national superstars that it is usually hard-pressed to come up with a decent scandal. True, there were the Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair affairs. But they were just promising up-and-comers, unknown to the general public until they went bad.

The media world has been abuzz for most of this month about the phony column that Mitch Albom, the bestselling author, wrote for the Detroit Free Press. Although Albom clearly screwed up and should be punished, I've been stunned by the level of outrage directed at him. Nothing less than a public beheading would seem to satisfy some of his critics.

Mitch Albom, the bestselling author and longtime sports columnist for the Detroit Free Press, will resume writing for the paper and will not be fired for having written a column describing events that didn't happen, the paper announced Saturday in a Page 1 "Letter to Readers."

Thanks to David Shaw for an interesting piece on Mitch Albom ["How One Careless Act Became a Really Big Deal," April 24]. It raised interesting points to think about, such as "pre-writing" and lax copy editing for columnists of high stature. I slightly disagree with Shaw about Albom's fate at the Free Press. I think he should have been fired automatically for what he did. His telling readers that Cleaves and Richardson were at the game, when they in fact weren't, was a fabrication of the same type as Jayson Blair's and Stephen Glass'.

Writers believe they can fix the world with a sentence. But it's always the next sentence. Salvation, redemption, the perfect last kiss -- they are all but one elusive word away. So we search. We can't help it. We search. We try. We throw out. We search again. It is a noble effort if you are writing a book. On the other hand, if you are doing a play or a movie, it can make you, with all due literary respect, a hefty pain in the butt.

A cellphone bleats just as the performers are trying to communicate something meaningful. Normally, this would be the most annoying sound in the world, but in "Tuesdays With Morrie" at the Laguna Playhouse, it's part of the message. Based on the bestselling book, the play shares the lessons in living that Mitch Albom learned from a dying man.

Kim Morimoto,\o7 pharmacy administrator:\f7 "Tuesdays With Morrie," by Mitch Albom (Doubleday). "The simplicity of living every day to the fullest takes on a different dimension through the eyes of Albom's dying teacher, Morrie Schwartz, who teaches powerfully simple lessons." **** Robert Yallen,\o7 ad executive:\f7 "Storms and Illuminations: 18 Years of Access Theatre," by Cynthia Wisehart (Emily Publications).