Featured Book
The Alchemist by Paul Coelho
The Alchemist is simply one of the most important books I have ever
read. If you are human, you should read it. Describing it any further would
be doing it an injustice...so I'll let this guy do it...
From Amazon.com
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 sniff 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 Andalusian
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." --Gail Hudson.
So, do yourself a favor and read the book.
Read any good books lately?
--Let me know what they are by sending an email to csferry@uga.edu
Last Updated: 2-22-02