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The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream
by: Paulo Coelho

List Price: £7.99

Off The Bookshelf's Price: £5.59

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Used Price: £0.71
Collectible Price: £3.75
Third Party New Price: £2.50

Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780722532935
ISBN: 0722532938
Label: Thorsons
Manufacturer: Thorsons
Number Of Pages: 192
Publication Date: September 06, 1999
Publisher: Thorsons
Studio: Thorsons
Sales Rank: 212

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
Like the one-time bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Alchemist presents a simple fable, based on simple truths and places it in a highly unique situation. And though we may sense a bestselling formula, it is certainly not a new one: even the ancient tribal storytellers knew that this is the most successful method of entertaining an audience while slipping in a lesson or two. Brazilian storyteller Paulo Coehlo introduces Santiago, an Andalucian shepherd boy who one night dreams of a distant treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. And so he's off: leaving Spain to literally follow his dream.

Along the way he meets many spiritual messengers, who come in unassuming forms such as a camel driver and a well-read Englishman. In one of the Englishman's books, Santiago first learns about the alchemists--men who believed that if a metal were heated for many years, it would free itself of all its individual properties, and what was left would be the "Soul of the World." Of course he does eventually meet an alchemist, and the ensuing student-teacher relationship clarifies much of the boy's misguided agenda, while also emboldening him to stay true to his dreams. "My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy confides to the alchemist one night as they look up at a moonless night.

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself," the alchemist replies. "And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Inspiring & Enlightening
Wow! I have just finished reading this book and cannot praise it highly enough. As others have said you need to be in a specific frame of mind and desire certain dreams & aspirations to really benefit from this read, if i had read this a few years ago i may not got as much out of it.

Rating:

- Not quite Harry Potter and Marmite
JK Rowling's stories of the bespectacled wizard are simple, engaging, easily digested and, most importantly, re-connected kids with books and their imagination! Coelho has certainly helped do the same for professionals worldwwide. Coelho is to management literature what Rowling is to fiction and shares her phenomenal success because he connects with the parts few authors reach with his blend of simple storytelling largely following well established patterns explained by the "sage" Joseph Campbell's mono myth theories. Rather like Mr Potter and that iconic savoury spread Marmite,however, folk tend to either love or hate Coelho's "naive" literature. It certainly seems to fill a spiritual gap, it's very accessible and thousands are willing to ... Read More:

Rating:

- A simple masterpiece
When I was a novice reader this was thee best book I ever read... Puring with original insights, but a year later after reading (Peaceful warrior, conversations with God & others, I tried for a second read & to my shock it is now like reading a child's book (its too simple)
But I'll never forget the first time reading this treasure!

Rating:

- Too thin to be satisfying
I approached this book with optimism, as it had been recommended by a friend, but I found it an incredibly unrewarding read. It has a simple (okay, nothing wrong with that) story and claims to be some sort of fable through which, apparently, greater truths are exposed. It struck me as pretentious and trivial. I also thought the writing style was weak and uneven, at the same time as being painfully self-conscious, almost as if the author had decided 'I need to write a book to appeal to millions of undemanding readers.' Perhaps I'm missing something, though, because I seem to remember that Nicola Horlick chose it as her book for a desert island. A review by her would be interesting.

Rating:

- Yawn
This book was passed around a large group of my friends and I during a pool holiday and opinion was, sufficed to say, mixed! Some loved it, some loathed it: I fall into the later category. I found it preachy and dull and reminded me of Sunday School lessons (not a good thing!)

The saving grace was that it only took a couple of hours to read and it passed some time by the poolside. If you've got time to kill and NOTHING better to do then sure, give it a go and see what you think for yourself.

Books : The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream