Excerpts-

• From the cover

  The stories that follow come from my personal experiences. I’ve altered the order, names, and details of the people here, I was forced to condense some scenes, but everything that follows truly happened to me. I’ve used the third person because this allowed me to give characters  unique voices with which to describe their lives.
   
  ***
  
  In September 1970, two sites squared off for the title of the center of the world: Piccadilly Circus, in London, and Dam Square, in Amsterdam. But not everyone knew this: if you asked most people, they’d have told you: “The White House, in the US, and the Kremlin in the USSR.” These people tended to get their information from newspapers, television, radio, media that were already entirely outdated and that would never regain the relevance they had when first invented.
  
  In September 1970, airplane tickets were outrageously expensive, which meant only the rich could travel. OK, that wasn’t entirely true for an enormous number of young people whom these outdated media outlets could see only for their outward appearance: they wore their hair long, dressed in bright-colored clothing never took a bath (which was a lie, but these young kids didn’t read the newspaper, and the older generation believed any news item that served to denigrate those they considered “a danger to society and common decency”). They were a danger to an entire generation of diligent young boys and girls trying to succeed in life, with their horrible example of lewdness and “free love,” as their detractors liked to say with disdain. Well, this ever-growing number of kids had a system for spreading news that no one, absolutely no one, ever managed to detect.
  
  The “Invisible Post” couldn’t be bothered to discuss the latest Volkswagen or the new powdered soaps that had just been launched around the globe. It limited its news to the next great trail awaiting explorationby those insolent, dirty kids practicing “free love” and wearing clothes no one with any taste would ever put on. The girls with their braided hair covered in flowers, their long dresses, bright-colored shirts and no bras, necklaces of all shapes and sizes; the boys  with their hair and beards that hadn’t been cut for months. They wore faded jeans with tears from overuse because jeans were expensive everywhere in the world—except for the US, where they’d emerged from the ghetto of factory workers and were worn at all the major open-air shows in and around San Francisco.
  
  The “Invisible Post” existed because people were always going to these concerts, swapping ideas about where they ought to meet next, how they could explore the world without jumping aboard one of those tourist buses where a guide described the sights while the younger people grew bored and the old people dozed. And so, thanks to word of mouth, everyone knew where the next concert was to take place or where to find the next great trail to be explored. No one had any financial restrictions because, in this community, everyone’s favorite author wasn’t Plato or Aristotle or comics from some artist who’d attained celebrity status,the big book, which almost no one who traveled to the Old Continent did so without, went by the name Europe on 5 Dollars a Day. With this book, everyone could find out where to stay, what to see, where to eat, where to meet, and where to catch live music while hardly spending a thing.
  
  Frommer’s only error at the time was having limited his guide to Europe. Were there not perhaps other interesting places...

About the Author-

• Paulo Coelho’s life remains the primary source of inspiration for his books. He has flirted with death, escaped madness, dallied with drugs, withstood torture, experimented with magic and alchemy, studied philosophy and religion, read voraciously, lost and recovered his faith, and experienced the pain and pleasure of love. In searching for his own place in the world, he has discovered answers for the challenges that everyone faces. He believes that within ourselves we have the necessary strength to find our own destiny.
  
  His books have been translated into 82 languages and have sold more than 230 million copies in more than 170 countries. His 1988 novel, The Alchemist, has sold more than 85 million copies and has been cited as an inspiration by people as diverse as Malala Yousafzai and Pharrell Williams.
  
  He is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters and has received the Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur. In 2007, he was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace.

Reviews-

• 

  October 1, 2018
  Drawing on his own past experiences, Coelho (The Alchemist) tells the story of a young man named Paulo exploring love, spirituality, and the world during the 1960s in this uninspired novel. Paulo, an aspiring writer born in Brazil, hitchhikes his way through Bolivia, Peru, Chile, and Argentina before deciding to head for Amsterdam, where he has heard of a new movement of love and sexual liberation. There Paulo meets Karla, and they begin the first tentative steps toward the lasting love that Karla desperately seeks. Karla, meanwhile, is planning a trip to Nepal to pursue her own spiritual liberation. After Paulo agrees to go with her, they set out on a bus with like-minded travelers and meet a variety of personalities—all of whom have a story to tell and life lessons to impart—leading to long tangents about life, love, and the spiritual motivations that inspired his years of traveling. Coelho never quite brings the reader in to the main characters’ experiences and lives, but some of the narrative side trips are worth taking. The author’s most ardent fans will enjoy this, but readers looking for an immersive tale with fully formed characters will be disappointed.

• In the late 1960s, millions of young people around the world set out in search of new paths and new ways. In a voice mixing youthful earnestness with just a hint of hard-earned cynicism, Graham Halstead narrates celebrated Brazilian author Paulo Coelho's latest offering, which is as much a memoir as a novel. After some harrowing experiences in South America, the young Paulo sets out for Amsterdam, where he meets the beautiful Karla, who invites him to join a group of seekers traveling on "The Magic Bus" headed for Kathmandu. Halstead does a fine job performing the many characters' international accents and ages. Coelho's writings are known for their spirituality, and certainly that interest must have begun in his "hippie" youth. B.P. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

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