Reading Double: The Gifts of Imperfection And The Alchemist

Recently I realized that I tend to read books in pairs. The habit is helpful in making sure that I don’t get bored halfway through and abandon a book. It also helps lighten the mood if the book I am reading is heavier or more dense.

In the case of my latest pairing I was pretty intentional. Going in to starting The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown, I knew that Brown’s writing style would be story-led but also have a layer of research in it that could feel dense to me if I was only reading that. Enter: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

I consider these book pairings a fun hobby for me. It’s like what wine and cheese is for other people. Not only do I think that the right set of books can help make sure you get to the end of each of them, but if they complement each other nicely I also think that they help bring more up to the surface together than they maybe would have alone.

The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown

You cannot go wrong picking up a Brene Brown book. I started getting to know Brown’s work by reading Rising Strong and since then have been working my way through the rest of her books. The Gifts of Imperfection is one of her earliest ones. I picked it up for a couple of reasons. First of which is I’m a sucker for an anniversary edition of a book and The Gifts of Imperfection has both a new cover and a new intro in celebration of its anniversary. Second is that I was just really looking to dive into a book that could help me understand my relationship to perfectionism a bit more. I like how well Brown humanizes data and offers up our most intrinsically human attributes in a nonjudgmental way. This is a good book to pick up if you’re wanting a guide on how to let go of the parts of you that you feel have been holding you back.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Going into reading Brown, I knew that I wanted to offset some of the data and heavier aspects of the book with something thematically similar but incredibly opposite. The Alchemist is magical realism, but also a “yes, I need to follow my dreams!” kind of book. The book is focused on Santiago’s journey to find his treasure. It takes you through the ups and downs of what chasing his Personal Journey teaches him. I read it once a year and have since the first time I read it when I was in the 10th grade. I wrote a bit more here about why I choose to read it once a year. The high level is this though - it’s a book that brings me back to myself in few ways anything else can. It invites us to believe in the Universe and I think it was the first time I ever read an honest description of the power of omens.

The Overlap

I finished Brene Brown’s book first and at the end of it felt like I had uncovered a lot of myself, but had nowhere to put it. The Alchemist gave me the catalyst to use the space I now had in my head and heart as space to dream and believe in magic again. It sounds far fetched, but Santiago’s journey in the book is one that I can always relate back to no matter what stage of my life I am in. Both books are centered on the belief that we’re meant for more than to just be afraid of our lives or our successes.

Do you have any pair of books you love reading together? What’s your latest read been?