The AlchemistThe Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I was walking around Waterstones stocking up on some reading for my holiday when this book caught my eye. I had heard of it but had no idea what it was about. I believe it is usually sitting next to ‘The Secret’, which I also haven’t read.

The premise of the story is that we meet a little Arab shepherd who is quite content tending his sheep until he meets an old man who claims to be a king. He gives him two stones and tells the boy that he must in fact follow his destiny. He has all sorts of adventures finding his way to the pyramids by following his heart and his instinct.

It’s a parable about how in life we tend to follow the safer path than the one that would bring us happiness. It was an ok read, I wouldn’t rave about it, it seemed to be trying to hide instructions behind a story.

Sometimes in life we are led down a path and I do think it is very important to follow our lead. I went to a talk earlier this year in which a very successful business woman said that the main bit of advice she would like to impart to us was how important it is to follow our instincts and at times when she hadn’t listened to her heart it had always led to disaster!

That’s basically what this book is telling you.

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Published On: October 16th, 2011 / Categories: Blogs, Books, Reviews /