The Best Book I've Ever Read: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

I still remember the moment that me taking such exotic book out of local library’s bookshelf. The bookcase, which was about twice my height, stood before me in a stately form, and the book in my hand made me feel strange. And at the moment I read the title of the book, I instinctively became obsessed with the idea that I had to read it. The exotic book held in that eight year old boy’s hands was ‘the Alchemist’ of Paulo Coelho, which eventually became the most influential book in my life.

In fact, when I look back now, it's hard to say that ‘The Alchemist’ was a very good option for eight-years-old boy’s book to read. The contents of the book are not sound and the message itself is a little complicated to understand. But at that time, I liked this book very much. At the age of eight, I liked the idea that Santiago was taking a trip and meeting new people throughout the whole book. Maybe I thought of this book as an adventure novel. And so the book went back into the bookcase. When I see my first encounter with this book, I think that I read it too simply compared to the feeling that I was attracted to it at first.

And I happened to read this book again when I was 15. While I was in the middle of puberty, I suddenly had a girl in my class who I liked. Almost for the first time I had a girl that I like, I was at a loss how to approach to her, and on the way thinking, I noticed the book in her bag. After school, I stopped by the bookstore and bought the book, and I realized that it was the book I read when I was eight years old. And the book that I read at that time was different from the book that I read before. At that time, I have focused on the process of finding Santiago’s own treasure and passing through various people and modifying himself. And without that much excitement, the book was stuck in my bookcase.

This book and my third meeting took place last year, winter. Back then, I was tormented by the obsession that I could succeed only when I found something new and that I was too lacking in my present status. I was approaching a state of discharging almost all my energy and needed some certain turning point. Lying on my bed wasting my time, all I could see was some books, but I eventually picked the same one, ‘The Alchemist.’ I don't know if it was because I remembered the memories I read, or because I was curious about the vague ending, but I was attracted to something and picked the book out of many books. As I read the book, Santiago in the book was just like me. I felt as if I had seen myself through the figure of Santiago struggling to find a treasure after what others had said, outside somewhere else. And through the ending of this book, I realized that something really valuable is not necessarily new or different from things that I know. And so my third reading is over.

“The secret of happiness is to see all the beauty of the world and to remember two drops of oil in a spoon at the same time.”

This is my favorite line of this book. It means everything that this book gives me, and it's all that this book is about to deliver. The books I have read three times are uncommon and so few have been affect me. And I want to choose ‘The Alchemist’ as the most important book in my life because it is a book that taught me more than any other teacher. To eight-year-old me, this book gave me the curiosity to find what I wanted, to 15 years old me, it implanted me the courage to discover, and to 17 years old me, it let me know that really valuable things aren't far away. Since I've learned so many things, I would like to recommend this book to everyone, and I hope various people could read it.

                                                                        Paulo Coelho on Luck, Coincidence, and Faith