A tale of love, longing and obsesssion - Rated 
Without a doubt this book is a truly great piece of work. Not the simplistic and beautiful message we can easily absorb and receive in the Alchemist... nonetheless a powerful read. It does get a bit heavy and circuitous in the middle chapters for sure but I think having read many Paulo Coelho books he uses the weightiness of his story to show us sometimes how life can be.... we get weighed down with life before we find our path once again.
Read this book if you have ever found yourself lost or unhappy with what you have become in your life... its a soulful search for the man he had lost ... the one his wife could no longer live with. Each person has their own Zahir - its finding the courage and the way to follow your heart's desire that eventually takes us to ourselves.
Searching - Rated
I've returned once again to one of my favorite authors to review his latest work. Paulo Coelho of international fame for The Alchemist, 11 Minutes and The Devil and Miss Prym, has released his latest The Zahir. According to the book, the Zahir in Arabic means present, visible, incapable of being unnoticed. It is something that grabs our thought, mind and spirit and demands our full attention. It is believed to lead to either Holiness or madness. In this book, the Zahir is a woman, an idea of a woman, a longing. Our main character sounds very familiar to our author; in fact our hero is a famous author now living in Paris, with his books being published in nearly every language. (which sounds like Mr. Coelho. This book is being published in 50 countries/languages this year alone. The author writes books that millions love, adore, and claim changes their lives. Yet he appears to have stopped living the type of deliberate life he writes about. He has settled into a complacent life.
Then one day his wife disappears. Over time she becomes his Zahir; he writes a book about love and for a while the Zahir fades. Then he meets the man he believes she had left with and the Zahir returns.
This is a wonderful story about becoming, and remembering who you were meant to be, not who you settled into. It will stir in you a passion to be more than you think you can be, and, to give more, and love more purely. Follow a man who goes in search of an estranged wife, only to find himself.
(First Published in Imprint 2005-09-14 as 'Is your objective very visible?)
Dull Dull Dull - Rated 
How this author has managed to become so successfull is beyond me.
The story completely lacks suspense as you begin to realise that the central characters' missing wife is much better off not being found, since her husband is a sexist, selfish and arrogant bore of a man.
The language used by the author is bland and un-inspiring, and this book seems to be just an excuse for him to express his dated and pretentions views in a very boring over indulgent way.
Pretentious - Rated
'The Zahir' is a dire read. Self-indulgent and dull. A few interesting messages, but not worth the HOURS it took me to get through this book. It was a relief to reach the end.
very disappointing - Rated 
I've read almost all of Coelho's books and loved them all; until now. I found the Zahir a real chore to read. I struggled through to the end in the hope that there would be some beautiful enlightenment, but was left feeling rather empty and disappointed. Perhaps it had something to do with the main character, who I didn't find particularly pleasant, but I couldn't engage with the incessant theme of love and losing our personal history. Actually, I found myself thinking that it was all "mumbo-jumbo" nonsense, which is completely out of character for me.
Here's hoping his next book is better!
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