Hi all! Another week coming to an end already. I don’t know how but the year of 2020 is just flying by and I am running to catch it. How is your year going so far? Today I’m writing about another favorite from Paulo Coelho that I recently discovered. The book is named ‘Aleph’ , the first letter of Hebrew. It has all those elements I love about Paulo’s books, it had philosophical discussions, it had mystery, it was engaging, it had an aura of itself. I borrowed this book from library, and it was lying on my desk for a while. I picked it up to read just 3 days before it was due. And I was hooked. I read nights and days, whenever I could find a chunk of 20 minutes, I was reading another chapter of the book. I completed this book in 2 and a half day and ran to the library to return it. This was a satisfying experience taken to another level! So as you may have guessed, I read a hard copy of this book. Somehow these days I’m going away from audiobooks and switching back to hard copies. It’ll be interesting to see how my choices change over time and season.

Back to the book ‘aleph’. The book started with usual Paulo Coelho setup, a bunch of intellectuals, discussing and discovering the philosophy of life. And no wonder, this book being based on reality has to be deep and enlightening. This book somehow brought me closer to the author I always was curious about. The way he interacts with his friends, his personal relationships and his unrecognizable mindset reveals to us through the book. We have always heard the most intellectual ones are the most unpredictable ones. And again and again this proved to be right in this story. The speed with which his thoughts run are not easy to catch. The book starts of with a little background about his book tour, and then comes the trans Siberian train journey. The book is a sort of memoir of this longest train journey of the world, and the philosophically charged moments that came along the way. As the journey begins, we too join on board. Through the book, I experienced a journey I’ll probably never have. I even felt the travel fatigue, the excitement of being at new unexplored place, even the rocking that we feel in train.

The concept of aleph was so mesmerizing to discover. It was new yet convincing. It was deep and yet easy to grasp. The discovery of aleph was so satisfying that I kept turning pages fast until I read about the next aleph. The book was not just a good read, it was a good experience. I loved how it was going with a slow pace, yet it was not monotonous. Things happen so smoothly that it feels natural. We get time to get adapted to the new characters and new places yet with each line there’s a new layer of aleph that we discover. The end is not painful yet it’s not all mushy gushy. We can live with that end despite of it being real. The book never loses touch of reality. It’s a book good to read on a rainy day, with a cup of hot tea. That’s exactly what I did. Would I read this book again? Yes, but in a train for sure. A long train journey reading this book is certainly going on my wishlist.

Another book review is on the way. And probably then I’ll get some slot to develop a schedule which would be more than just book reviews. Hope this goes smoothly. More about another book in the next blog. Till then keep reading, stay positive.