Showerthought: Our book club's debate on 'The Alchemist' totally flopped

We spent 45 minutes arguing whether it's actually about self-discovery or just a guy being lucky, and nobody could agree on a single takeaway. Has anyone else had a book just not spark the kind of discussion you expected?

2 comments

2 Comments

taylorlewis1mo ago

Yeah, "just a guy being lucky" hits close to home. I've noticed this pattern with a lot of popular self-help books where the story is so simple that people read their own lives into it. That's probably why the debate fell flat. Your mileage may vary, but in my experience, those books work best as a mirror for where you're at personally, not as a universal truth. Take that with a grain of salt, but I've seen it happen with "The Four Agreements" and "Atomic Habits" too.

holly_green821mo ago

Seems like we all just want a simple story to make sense of our messy lives.