用心看世界

I picked up the book at the airport while waiting for the flight in Amsterdam.  I picked up the book not because of its explicit sex sences (which I found out only later) but of its rather interesting beginning:

"Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria.  Wait a minute.  'Once upon a time' is how all the best children's stories begin and 'prostitute' is a word for adults.  How can I start a book with this apparent contradiction?  But since, at every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other the abyss, let's keep that beginning."

Ok, I am now very interested to read about such contradiction.  I did not know if it is its easy-reading vocabulary that makes the page turning, or is it the story.  In any case it IS page turning and I finished it within the flight hours (last book like this was Dan Brown's Angels & Demons).  As I read along, my understanding of love seemed to evolve to a different level as is with Maria.   

I didn't know this is not the first Paulo Coelho book I have in shelf until I read the page on his collection.  The book I had in shelf is his 《By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept》 (I have this book in its Chinese translation).  I guess this means it is really the story that makes the page turning, Chinese or English alike.  I am definitely buying more of Coelho's book.  

This book is highly recommended if we want to learn love (or I guess sex too), I've read the commentary by Amazon readers, whom some said the same.