Step inside this captivating account of Paulo Coehlo's pilgrimage along the road to Santiago. This fascinating parable explores the need to find one's own path. In the end, we discover that the extraordinary is always found in the ordinary and simple ways of everyday people. Part adventure story, part guide to self-discovery, this compelling tale delivers the perfect combination of enchantment and insight.

This is the story of Athena, or Sherine, to give her the name she was baptised with. Her life is pieced together through a series of recorded interviews with those people who knew her well or hardly at all - parents, colleagues, teachers, friends, acquaintances, her ex-husband. The novel unravels Athena's mysterious beginnings, via an orphanage in Romania, to a childhood in Beirut. When war breaks out, her adoptive family move with her to London, where a dramatic turn of events occurs.

A chance meeting in Rio takes Maria to Geneva, where she dreams of finding fame and fortune, yet ends up working the streets as a prostitute. In Geneva, Maria drifts further and further away from love while at the same time developing a fascination with sex. Eventually, Maria's despairing view of love is put to the test when she meets a handsome young painter. In this odyssey of self-discovery, Maria has to choose between pursuing a path of darkness or risking everything to find her own 'inner light'.

After lying undiscovered for over 700 years, a manuscript holding the answers to a city’s final questions is unearthed from a cave in Cairo. Centuries before, on the eve of the invasion of Accra, the citizens gathered. A man stood before them and invited the people share their fears that he might offer hope and comfort. His extraordinary insights on courage, solitude, loyalty and loss were transcribed and passed on. A timeless and powerful exploration of personal growth, everyday wisdom and joy.

At the end of the 19th century, the young missionary Henry Drummond was asked to replace a famous preacher. Though at the beginning he did not convince the audience, they were soon captivated by his analysis of the words of the Apostle Paul. This sermon, The Greatest Thing in the World, has become a classic and is, without doubt, one of the most beautiful texts ever written on love.

Coehlo's poignant, deeply spiritual tale of Pilar, an independent and practical yet restless young woman whose life is forever changed by an encounter with a childhood friend who has grown to be a mesmerizing and handsome seminarian. Together they embark on a journey through the French Pyrenees, where they explore the "[F]eminine face of God" and make the dramatic discovery that love is God.

Paulo Coelho's enchanting novel has inspired a devoted following around the world. This story, dazzling in its simplicity and wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of treasure buried in the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an Alchemist, all of whom point Santiago in the direction of his quest.

It begins with a glimpse or a passing thought. It ends in obsession. One day a renowned author discovers that his wife, a war correspondent, has disappeared leaving no trace. Though time brings more success and new love, he remains mystified - and increasingly fascinated - by her absence. Was she kidnapped, blackmailed, or simply bored with their marriage? The unrest she causes is as strong as the attraction she exerts.

Between life and death there is a library. When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change. The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life.

I've been in this life for 50 years, been trying to work out its riddle for 42 and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last 35. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.

Cloud Atlas features six characters in interlocking stories, each interrupting the one before it: a reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan's California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified dinery server on death row; and Zachry, a young Pacific islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation.

Tired of his disconnected life and uninspiring job, Leon Logothetis leaves it all behind - job, money, home, and even his cell phone - and hits the road with nothing but the clothes on his back and five dollars in his pocket, relying on the kindness of strangers and the serendipity of the open road for his daily keep. Along the way, Leon offers up the intriguing and charming tales gathered along his one-of-a-kind journey: riding in trains, buses, big rigs and classic cars; sleeping on streets and couches and firehouses....

A haunting story of fatherhood, national identity, and what it means to be an immigrant in America today, Nafkote Tamirat's The Parking Lot Attendant explores how who we love, the choices we make, and the places we’re from combine to make us who we are. The story begins on an undisclosed island where the unnamed narrator and her father are the two newest and least-liked members of a commune that has taken up residence there. This detached existence only makes Ayale’s arrival on the scene more intoxicating. The unofficial king of Boston’s Ethiopian community, Ayale is a born hustler.

In Isabel Losada's extraordinary For Tibet with Love, she explores whether it's possible for an ordinary person to change the world, just a little, and if something so serious can be achieved with joy in one's heart. From visits to Nepal and Tibet, to meetings with the Chinese ambassador and Tibetan awareness-raising groups, Isabel single-handedly hatches a stunning PR coup involving Nelson's Column, a 15-meter banner and a base-jumping parachutist that captured headlines worldwide.

The strange tale of a boy named Flea starts in Rye, NY. It was all very normal. But soon his parents divorced and his mother Patricia remarried a jazz musician. Flea's stepfather frequently invited musicians to his house for jam sessions which sparked Flea's interest in music. The family moved to Los Angeles, where Flea became fascinated with the trumpet, idolising musicians like Miles, Dizzy, and Louis....