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

Product Description
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 the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams."

Every few decades a book is published that changes the lives of its readers forever. The Alchemist is such a book. With over a million and a half copies sold around the world, The Alchemist has already established itself as a modern classic, universally admired. Paulo Coelho's charming fable, now available in English for the first time, will enchant and inspire an even wider audience of readers for generations to come.

The Alchemist is the magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as extravagant as any ever found. From his home in Spain he journeys to the markets of Tangiers and across the Egyptian desert to a fateful encounter with the alchemist.

The story of the treasures Santiago finds along the way teaches us, as only a few stories have done, about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, above all, following our dreams.

Just as I hated Jonathan Livingston Seagull when I was a teenager, I hate this book now! No, hate is too strong a word for this piece of insignificant and shallow tripe. In every generation along comes an over-hyped meditation which is nothing more than New Age, melange-religion twaddle. And this is the one for now.

And it's way over-priced.

Disappointingly, it's by the author of one of my favourite books of the past couple of years (Veronika Decides To Die) .

Personal Legends sound like some of advertising industry hype for the latest inspiration for how You Too Can Be President, or how You Too Can Win A Gold Medal at the Olympics.

But when I got to this nonsense on page 80: "Everything on earth is being continuously transformed, because the earth is alive....and it has a soul. We are part of that soul, so we rearely recognize that it is working for us. But in the crystal shop you probably realized that even the glasses were collaborating in your success", I just exploded in laughter. God, Allah and Crystals.

As a woman this book says absolutely nothing to me: "The desert was full of men who earned their living based on the ease with which they could penetrate to the Soul of the World. They were known as seers, and they were held in fear by women and the elderly." (p 103). Probably those other weaklings, children as well, though that is not specified. But there is a role for women - waiting around the oasis for their men to either return or hearing they have been killed. Grand! Just what I've been wanting to know - it's transformed my life! The most profound insight yet known to Man. Come, on pull the other leg!

If I want to go looking for The Philosopher's Stone, I think I'll choose Harry Potter as my companion!