have a peach of a physical therapist. In the weeks following my surgery, she’d been the one outlining my exercise program, making me stretch and flex and hurt and get better. A lot of my recovery, I owe to her.

She’s from Brazil and we’ve chatted about life there, life here, all that. One cool down following a rough session, we got to talking about books (I always bring a new one every week for the waiting room). Anyway, she told me she loved a Brazilian author named Paulo Coelho, who I’ve never heard of. She told me she’s read a lot of his stuff and that I should try him. Which title? “Any won,” she told me with that interesting accent of hers.

So I went into Barnes and Noble and found out they had a number of Coelho books, more than I expected. Letting the Gods of Literature decide, I plucked one off the shelf at random. It’s called The Alchemist and looked very interesting (I’m not going to tell you exactly what it is about – that’s for Sunday’s book review!)

So I took it home and started to read it. I’ll say this – Coelho has a very engaging style. It was one of those books that is a delight to read, and you don’t look ahead for the next chapter or section break, but as you pass each one, you tell yourself, “Okay, I gotta stop. But one more…” Nice read. Went down really easy.

While the book is fairly short, I burned through it quick. Tuesday I was nearly done and decided it would be great to read it over pie and coffee at the local bakery. Walked over, thinking about the book. It stresses that many things in life happen for reasons and omens are hints that we are getting close to something we want. Maybe, maybe not, but I still loved the book.

Inside the bakery, the cashier always asks what I’m reading. When I said, The Alchemist, the bakery lady who happened to be up from the back room looked across the counter at me. “I read that book,” she told me with a warm smile. “Loved it.”

That was a nice moment, and the serendipity of the event wasn’t lost on me. Here I was thinking of event-driven life moments and one just happens out of the blue. It was so delightful and unexpected, it made my fingers tingle.

So thanks to the physical therapist for her recommendation of Paulo Coelho, to the bakery for the seat, the pie and the coffee, and the universe for everything.

Review of The Alchemist this Sunday!

>>>AND, BECAUSE THE UNIVERSE IS TELLING YOU, BUY MY BOOKS!<<<