Read: Brida

Title: Brida
Author: Paulo Coelho
Publisher: Harper Collins Publisher, 2008

The first book by Paulo Coelho that I have read was "The Alchemist". Since then, I have read a few other of his books and find his writing pretty deep and thoughtful provoking.

According to the condensed summary found on the backcover of the book, Brida is "the story of Brida, a beautiful young Irish girl, and her quest for knowledge. On her journey, she meets a wise man who teaches her about overcoming her fears, and a woman who teaches her how to dance to the hidden music of the world. They see in her a gift, but must het her make her own voyage of discovery."

I find Brida a good read. I have enjoyed walking Brida's journey with her as a reader of the book. In many aspects, as a reader, reading the book was about learning to be like Brida, to learn to take risks and to risk failure.

Some of the passages in the book speak about the processes of making decisions and those of learning to muster the courage to make decisions. I quite appreciate the timely reminder by this short story between the protaganist and her father somewhere back in time. It goes like this, Brida's father led her to a large, antique grandfather clock which had stopped for years because it could no longer be repaired, and said "Nothing in the world is ever completely wrong, even a stopped clock is right twice a day."

This is one of those books that I had purchased instead of borrowing a copy from the library. It's quite a page-turner when I started reading it. Now I have to figure out how to find a space for it on the book shelves.