Mr. E. reviewed on
Although this is Will Smith's favorite book (a person I admire a lot) I found this book to be vapid, dreary, and offering nothing in the way of insights. It shares a lot in sentiment with "The Secret" so I feel readers who enjoyed that may enjoy this book as well, as it appeals to the human conceit that life magically always gives you what you want (unless you live in Africa- for some reason it only works in materially abundant western democracies with plentiful opportunities.) A rather prosaic story wrapped in the pretense of spiritual profundity, The Alchemist offered no value except one good quote, "A man's eyes reflect the strength of his soul." The rest was quasi-spiritual blather about 'The language of the world' and 'omens' which kept rubbing up sharply against its borrowed biblical references to Jesus. Altogether an un-insightful mess. Readers would be far better off to dig into something offering real value for personal transformation, such as "The Self Talk Solution."
