The Farmingdale Community Summit's Fourth Annual Farmingdale Reads project, a community-wide literacy project culminated with a guest appearance by New York Times best selling author Mitch Albom lecturing at the Farmingdale Public Library on Jan. 29.

Mr. Albom's eighth book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, is currently on the New York Times Best Sellers List, and was this year's featured book. It was the inspiration for this year's writing contest which required all submissions to begin with "The person who influenced my life most is ..." Contest winners were published in the Summit's second annual anthology, Farmingdale Writes. Mr. Albom spoke to a standing room only crowd about his books, experiences and writing techniques.