Thursday, September 14, 2006

alchemist

The alchemistFinished reading this book a couple of days ago. V recommended it to me a while back, and the title awoke a vague recollection, that someone else had also recommended it to me. I think it was HRK. When I was round at the minister's house I noted that he and his wife had a huge number of books and his wife had just finished reading 'on beauty' by zadie smith and she said she hadn't read 'autograph man'. When i was next up I took along my copy of 'autograph man' and I asked if they happened to have a copy of the alchemist, and they did. In fact they had a copy that had been read by madonna, or at least she had left comments on the cover. It's a short story and would probably be better read in one sitting, but I'm not on holiday, so that wasn't acheived. The writing style is very simplistic, overtly so in my opinion. It's a story about following dreams, becoming aware of creation around us and the creator speaking through that. It's a story of aligning yourself with your heart to find your desires. All wrapped up with biblical 'mythology' and mysticism. It's worth a read.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Looks good, i like the review and it may get added to the HUGE pile of books i seem to be ploughing my way through at the moment

I have to say the quote from Madonna on the front doesn't make it at all attractive as the woman is slightly odd in the religion department (probably no more odd than me, but in a different way...)

Al