The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho

Last fall, I was in an ESL class giving a book talk on Waiting for Appa. The instructor had decided to use my book to teach the students vocabulary. I gave my talk, covering my immigrant experience and my meandering journey to becoming an author. The audience was awesome. I was so impressed with the tenacity and resilience of the people who were there to learn English AFTER they put a full day of work. I felt silly complaining about my life.

Now, remember, I was there to sell my book (I took 15 books with me). But as I spoke about following your dreams (in my case, being a writer when everything seemed to point to failure) to mostly predominantly Hispanic audience, I remembered a fantastic book I loved (and I knew they could find it in Spanish!). I loved this book so much that when I found it in Spanish after having received an English version as a birthday present in '94 (even the originally version was in Portuguese), I bought it thinking that this book would induce me to revisit my high school Spanish enough to read it (which I figured was closer to the original Portuguese than English). I told the audience about the Alchemist and told them, if they only had enough money to buy one book this month, then instead of buying mine, buy this life-affirming book, which will stay with them long after they finish reading it.

I've tried to read this book at least once every couple of years, and have purchased enough copies for my friends and family to fill a shelf (I even found it in Korean and bought it for my mother). This is one of ten books I'd choose if I was only limited to reading these ten books over and over for the rest of my life. I love this book because it helps me believe in life, in hope, and most importantly, in pursuing dreams.

SPOILER ALERT

My hardback dust jacket started off with..."My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky. "Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes it search of its dreams."

I was hooked by those words and eagerly followed Santiago's journey to find his treasure, which had been haunting him in his dreams. On his journey, he made and lost his fortune a couple of times, found the woman of his dreams (he didn't think she existed), and finally arrived at the place of his dreams (Egyptian pyramids) only to realize that the treasure he was seeking was elsewhere. In fact, the treasure was buried where Santiago, as a shepherd before embarking on this adventurous journey, often spent the night. He returned to the place and found his treasure.

I love this book because --

1. He had to make the journey and experience the life that was waiting for him in the world to find his treasure, even though the treasure had been buried at his place of origin all along. The journey itself was almost a part of his treasure.

2. The message that "when a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream."

3. It helps you realize that life is always, always, half-full.

4. After Santiago gets robbed of his fortune and he considers giving up, he pulls himself up and tells himself, I'm actually two hours closer to the Egyptian pyramids. That's more than he thought he could accomplish, just a short while ago. No matter what happens, don't give up. The universe is conspiring with you to make your dreams come true.

5. It makes me realize that things take time. Patience is not a virtue, but a must (this is always such a challenge for me). That the journey of life is never straight forward. In fact, life is richer because of all the detours we are forced to take.

6. I learn/realize something new about my life every time I read it.

7. It gives me hope and the courage to ask God for one more miracle in my life (there's always one more, isn't there?).

I'm at a point in my life where I often feel discouraged about my first book (Waiting for Appa), and anxiously wait for agents' responses on my second book while trying to look for a job that will keep me at home with my kids most of the time instead of traveling on business. So, I've read this book once again, hoping that it'd give me the courage to dream and ask the universe to conspire with me.

I simply love this book, but Paolo Coelho's other books were disappointments for me. I guess it's hard to live up to this one.

Note: It's taking me too long to finish reading the book and write the review. So, I'll be writing the reviews in segments as I read along. I guess it'd be really fun when I decide to read Les Miserable.

How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

Before I had kids, I used to say - if it takes me more than 10 minutes to make, it's not worth it. Also, I was so horrible and clueless about cooking (baking and anything else to do with food included) that when my husband ran to the kitchen because the cookies were burning, I calmly told him - "it's OK. Don't worry. Just flip them over!" I was completely ignorant about how cookies baked in the oven. And making a garden salad brought me to tears. This was my baseline.

Now, after two kids and seeing what horrible choices kids had when we ate out (it really didn't matter which restaurant and of course, we didn't have to order it from the kids menu, but why should it be that way?), I decided that I must learn to cook for our kids sake (my husband jokes that my love for him didn't induce me to cook, but my love my kids did. To that which I've answered, you can cook something for yourself. They can't). I was trying to stick to my old 10 minute rule, but with two young kids, it might take me 10 minutes to take the eggs out from the refrigerator let alone crack it and beat it. So, when I came across this book, I was intrigued by the title. How to cook EVERYTHING?

Well, even though I've bought about a dozen of cookbooks in the last ten years or so(remember, I don't like cooking), this is the cookbook I keep going back to. It's got great recipes for pancakes and waffles (no more mixes for us) as well as all kinds of soups. I also need to venture out more. This cookbook has whole menus for special days. I started photocopying my favorite recipes from other books and pasting it on to this book (because I might get rid of all the others, but I KNOW this is the one I'm going to keep). So, as a person who really doesn't like cooking and who is easily intimidated by cooking (I'm still very intimidated by yeast. I love baking breads, but all un-yeasted breads. For some reason, yeast, water temp, rising, etc. really intimidate the fledgeling cook within me), I love this book because it makes me feel like I can cook.