Open Heart Audio CD – Unabridged, December 4, 2012

I heard Mr. Wiesel speak in the 1980s, at the time when I was an English teacher and my students were reading Night. His words touched me and most certainly helped me process the words he'd written to assist my students as they tried to understand the devastation of the Holocaust. When I heard that Mr. Wiesel had passed, I wanted to read one of his books to pay my respects. I chose Open Heart because of its 5 star ratings, and somewhat, because of the description on Amazon. I had no idea that it was about open heart surgery...that he'd undergone that experience and shared his experience, fears, thoughts, and emotions about it.Now that I've finished reading, I'm once again brought back to that auditorium in Ohio, mystically transformed once again. If you've never heard him speak, check out some YouTube videos. I found the similarities between my life experiences and his amazingly similar and felt as though I learned a life-changing lesson (or two). I suggest listening to his voice because when you read his words, you'll hear him speaking to you in his soft-spoken and comforting voice as I did. Words are special when put together in order to makes us think. I learned today that the words meant even more when spoken by the author, even though they were only heard by me.Listen to Mr. Wiesel's voice: read Open Heart: find your own inspiration. It is well-worth the time.

Open Heart is the final book by Elie Wiesel. It is fitting that this be his las book as it sums up his life and yet calls out for you to read his other books.June 16, 2011, Elie Wiesel finds out his heart is failing him. According to his story, he doesn’t give up; but continues to fight the inevitable. While he is fighting for his life, he is also fighting to understand why. In all of his books, Elie seems to be wondering why things happen the way that they do. He just continues to worry why amid the worry about his heart. As usual, he wonders what will happen to his lovely wife and wonderful son. He lets the reader know that even though he may be going soon, the things he wonders about will still be there for the reader to continue to read about. It is a wonderful book by a fantastic man whose life has made such a difference for so many other people. He encourages us to look out for other people and to wonder about them instead of ourselves. It is a fantastic book to read.

In this slight memoir focused on his cardiac event, "Open Heart," Elie Wiesel opens his heart which opens his soul and in turn his mind to his readers and students. With touching transparency and vulnerability, Wiesel reveals himself and the deeper inner dialogue with his life. His carefully chosen words and personal reflections invoke the preacher of Ecclesiastes, the conscience of Job, and the passions of Jeremiah. Wiesel's loyal readers and students savor his existential quests in his first memoir,and his novels and plays but all the more we celebrate the rich, instructive, and edifying teaching in this manner of communicating what matters in life; a communication so accessible, so real, so tender, and so profoundly personal. His writings will continue to invite humanity into ever more purposeful striving for justice and peace, for unconditional inclusion and the radical containment of hate, but "Open Heart" has a fresh, new cadence, a fresh, new intimacy, and a deeply personal summons to choose life and blessing, gratitude and love. The wake up that came from Wiesel's cardiac event is told in such a way as to awaken us to a conscious embrace and awareness of the lives we live. Thank you and bless you, Elie Wiesel. Doug Huneke

The sublimeness of GOD is expressed over and over again. That is the answer to many questions. I will live to live.

Eli's Wiesel is/was and always will be a voice of heart and soul. Such a man of integrity. I only wish his hearts desire could come true and that is to never have such autraucities to happen again. However it keeps happening. When people think that their beliefs are the only true ones. Our beliefs should be more about what raises people up, as a whole. God always wants what is GOOD not power and destruction, no matter who you believe God to be.

inside view of the disasters of the Holocaust. very interesting.

Elie speaks like one of us: the questions, the searching, the incomprehension of man's never ending capacity for cruelty. His faith and his fears live equally at home within him. Yet most of us have never seen the horror he described in Night. in this book, he gives us a glimpse of the day to day reality of his life. His commitment to speak out against suffering is as passionate as his joy that he receives from his grand children.

This book is an easy read yet powerful. Courage at any age however this is not about giving up. All the challenges this fabulous human spirit has endured and yet he moves on. His purpose , his faith , his family are inspirational and I am grateful to have read this book . Thank you Mr. Elie Wiesel for improving the human condition.

Great read from a now departed great human being. I have read 6 of his books and ALWAYS wondered how great and caring a person he could be, in spite of all that he has endured. I am so very glad he met Marion, the love he felt for her and their son jumped out of this book, as if he was beside you in a deep and meaningful conversation, with compassion and Great love. Marion will be with you soon and you will NOT be alone. Thank you Ellie Wiesel.

A very moving and profound book.A very enjoyable read.

Escrito com sua invulgar sensibilidade e rara capacidade de refletir sobre os mais atrozes problemas produtores de perplexidade para o ser humano, o autor retrata sua paralela circunstância adversa de saúde como ponto do pensar dos dramas do sofrimento, da dor e da maldade humana, vividos pelo escritor nos campos de concentração nazista, onde perdeu pai, mãe, irmã.Concomitantemente, o autor manifesta sua fé no bem sobre o mal, na palavra como meio de bondade, na opção pelo que é bom em vez do que é maldade e ódio. Formula sua pergunta principal a Deus: por quê?Um texto maduro que relembra a trajetória marcante da vida do escritor, sagrado com o Prémio Nobel. Sempre um must.

How often do you get to read a follow-up to an autobiography 57 years after its first publication?Elie Wiesel's Night has long been a favourite of mine, and as a high school English teacher, I always look forward to sharing Wiesel's story with my students. It never fails to move me, no matter how many times I read it, and to see the lives of young people forever changed - even in the briefest of ways - makes this story even more special to me.Reading Open Heart was a wonderful experience for me. Learning even just a little bit about Elie Wiesel's life years after the Holocaust, and years after Night was originally published, made me feel like I was re-connecting with someone about whom I cared greatly, but with whom I had lost touch over the years. Reading about how he still struggled with his faith, yet was unable to let it go completely, further showed the impact of the Holocaust on someone whose ideologies at a young age had been deeply entrenched in his faith.In the same breath, to read his words about how we choose what to focus on, the good or the bad, brought a smile to my heart: "Should one therefore turn away from humanity? The answer, of course, is up to each of us. We must choose between the violence of adults and the smiles of children, between the ugliness of hate and the will to oppose it" (Wiesel, Open Heart, p. 72). This, in my opinion, says it all. The responsibility to choose how we deal with what happens to us in life is on us. And how empowering is that?

Heart warming book - pain and loss is part of all our lives. Elie speaks so personally about this experience and leaves one wanting to move from chapter to chapter. I was fully engaged while reading Open Heart. I promise myself to be more engaged with my own life from day to day. Noreen Muldoon