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Author Mitch Albom read from his latest book “For One More Day,” took questions, and

The people in Starbucks were twitching in their chairs. On Thursday, however, it was not because of their caffeine rush, but rather their anticipation as they eagerly awaited the appearance of novelist Mitch Albom in a Starbucks Book Break.

With their arms clutching Albom’s three novels, “Tuesdays with Morrie,” “The Five People you Meet in Heaven” and his latest, “For One More Day,” they filled the chairs, lined the walls and spilled out of the doors of the Brentwood coffee shop.

Starbucks is sponsoring Book Break to encourage readers. Albom’s book will be the campaign’s first. They will be selling the novel in Starbucks stores across the country and donating a dollar from each sale to Jumpstart, an organization that promotes child and adult literacy. On Thursday, Oct. 26, Starbucks locations all over the country will gather for book discussions with Albom calling in to each store to answer readers’ questions.

Albom decided to partner with Starbucks for personal reasons.

“You used to see people on subways or in coffee shops with books. Now you see them with iPods or text-messaging. Anything that boosts a return to reading is something all authors should be in favor of, ... and I’m flattered to be only the first of many authors who will be chosen by Starbucks to do that,” Albom said. “(Book Break) is a great way to encourage reading as a collective pursuit, much the way we go en masse to the opening weekend of a new movie or watch the season finale of a TV show.”

Albom made his name as a sports writer for the Detroit Free Press.

After a moving experience with an old friend and life mentor, Morrie Schwartz, Albom was inspired to write his first novel “Tuesdays with Morrie,” which became a bestseller and a movie, and was chosen for Oprah’s book club. His success has only lead to further fiction.

“A lot of people, after reading ‘The Five People You Meet In Heaven,’ came up to me and said, ‘You know, I really like that story, especially when he gets to meet those people from his life and boy what I wouldn’t give for one more day with ...’ and they would finish the sentence, ‘one more day with my dad, one more day with my uncle,’” Albom said.

“I began to hear this so often that I thought that sounded like an interesting idea for a book. What if someone actually got one of those days back with somebody that they lost? How would they actually really spend it? Would it be one of those glorious days or would it be the same old arguments that you always got into, because that’s how people are?”

Albom went on to discuss the novel’s autobiographical aspects.

“People always ask me, how much of this is autobiographical? I don’t know why people always ask this of a novelist. People even asked me that of ‘The Five People You Meet in Heaven.’ But ... a lot of the things that happened to Charlie did happen to me,” he said.

The author hopes that his book will inspire people to take advantage of the time they still have with loved ones and family.

“I hope people read this book and are moved by it and they go and make that phone call or go make that ride and make that visit now, because for all of those people who said, ‘Oh if I could only have one more day,’ a lot of those people had them. They had plenty. They just didn’t take them,” Albom said.