An interesting look at the life of Paulo Coelho. I'm a fan of his earlier work so it was enlightening to be able to get an insight into his life. ( )

I am most definitely not a fan of Paulo Coelho's work but I found this book on his life most interesting. I would definitely be interested in re-reading Coelho's work to see if I found it interesting the second time around.

This is not the sort of book I would read again though. I read it, and found it interesting, but Coelho doesn't interest me that much. The book starts from his early life, right up until last year when the biographer left Coelho and finished his work. An interesting look at Brazil during the dictatorship which Coelho personally suffered under and life in South America in general during the 50's and 60's. Definitely worth a read if it falls into your lap, but unless you're a Coelho fan I wouldn't bother searching for this book.

I usually find biographies very hard to read, but this one I had to because I read Paulo Coelho's books religiously, buying every new work of his that is published. I finally finished after about three months, and though not extremely enlightening, it gave me an insight into the man whom I admire so much for his work.

Paulo Coelho has certainly lived a fascinating life and this book covers the many things the hugely popular writer has been, from black magic practitioner to phenomenally successful author. It may be illuminating but the light it sheds does not fall kindly on Coelho who comes across as a conceited and ego centric character who has never been comfortable within his own skin.
Accusations from others of bias toward the subject seem a little strange as nothing is skipped over and there's an openness about Coelho's mental health issues which could easily have been spun into something more glamorous.
This holds much that will captivate the writer's fans and casual readers alike and credit to Morais for allowing his subject's life to speak for itself. ( )

There are two things that I look for in a biography - accuracy and readability. Morais has certainly ticked the 'readability' box with this one. It was a really entertaining read and I flew through it. I have a lot of books by Coelho - some I like, some I don't. This book attracted me because I was interested to know who the man was behind the books. It's certainly a detailed look at his past life and Morais appears to have had unfettered access to personal journals and to Coelho and his cohort. Coelho is an interesting and incredibly annoying man. He comes across as a person who is in total control of the image he wants to portray. This awoke the sceptic in me with regards to how balanced this book is. While on the surface it seems balanced, it's at odds with the man described within to believe that he would not exert some kind of subtle control of the image that is immortalised here. That said, I wouldn't want to imply that Morais intentionally slanted his book in a particular direction. His use of source material and the list of individuals he interviewed attest to a thorough and meticulous approach. There was imbalance between the treatment of time periods of Coelho's life - more attention was paid to his younger years, but that could be because they were more turbulent than his later life. It appears accurate though, in as far as I can judge it and in as much as you can believe than any authorised or sanctioned biography is wholly accurate.

I would definitely recommend this if you're at all interested in Coelho or in authors in general as biography subjects. Expect to enjoy the book but be prepared to want to bludgeon Coelho over the head with a mallet constructed of copies of 'The Alchemist' by the end of the book. ( )