Journal Entry 1 by inkognitoh from London , Greater London United Kingdom on Saturday, May 28, 2005

Purchased at the Barons Court Library book sale. They always have a shelf selling 7 books for a pound and I simply can't walk past it.

Coelho must be becoming unfashionable as there always seems to be one or two of his books at the sale. 

Journal Entry 2 by inkognitoh at London , Greater London United Kingdom on Monday, February 20, 2012

I finished this book today and it surprised me. At first it felt very much like a patronising journey into helping the reader to an awareness that life is madness and futility and you have to be out there amongst it, feeling (all the feelings) and being and doing. Especially the doing of sex and sexual expression. Well it was all of that but it was also something more.

'An awareness of death encourages us to live more intensely' states the author in relation to his protagonist but what a powerful message for the reader to hear. In my own way, I am experiencing this first hand and can concur. Luckily for me, I've never had a problem getting in touch with my inner mental patient however I do suffer from large doses of the dreaded poison 'Vitriol'.

All things considered, I enjoyed this book much more than I had expected to. It was my first experience of Coelho and I feared him as the University students guru with oversimplistic ideas. Relieved to find the ideas were marginally more complex. 

Journal Entry 3 by inkognitoh at Royal Academy of the Arts in London , Greater London United Kingdom on Saturday, March 17, 2012

Released 1 yr ago (3/16/2012 UTC) at Royal Academy of the Arts in London , Greater London United Kingdom

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Left during a visit to the David Hockney exhibition which I was very lucky to have free tickets to. I've never seen such a queue or crowd at the Royal Academy (or any other London exhibition for that matter). I enjoyed his work very much.