Conversation in heaven

Abd Mubarak was on his way to Mecca when one night he dreamed that he was in heaven and heard two angels having a conversation.
“How many pilgrims came to the holy city this year?” one of them asked.
“Six hundred thousand”, answered the other.
“And how many of them had their pilgrimage accepted?”
“None of them. However, in Baghdad there is a shoemaker called Ali Mufiq who did not make the pilgrimage, but did have his pilgrimage accepted, and his graces benefited the 600,000 pilgrims”.
When he woke up, Abd Mubarak went to Mufiq’s shoe shop and told him his dream.
“At great cost and much sacrifice, I finally managed to get 350 coins together”, the shoemaker said in tears. “But then, when I was ready to go to Mecca I discovered that my neighbors were hungry, so I distributed the money among them and gave up my pilgrimage”.

-Paulo Coelho

One Minute Read

Khalil Gibran on Friendship:

Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.”
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.
And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

House Rules

Everyone, it seems, has an opinion on autism: celebs, politicians — not to mention the medical community.

But to grasp on a gut level the emotional texture of what it's like to live with Asperger's syndrome (the highest-functioning form of autism) or to love a family member who has it, you need to read Jodi Picoult's powerful new House Rules.

House Rules has a serviceable plot involving a murder trial. Set in Vermont, the novel centers on Emma Hunt and her two teen sons. Older son Jacob, 18, is a high school senior with Asperger's; the younger son is the unimpaired Theo, 15. (People with Asperger's are often highly intelligent and very verbal but have difficulty navigating the world because they cannot interpret social cues correctly.)

Where's Dad? Although he sends his monthly child support, he fled to Silicon Valley when Theo was 6 months old, overwhelmed by the chaos created by a special-needs child.

Everything revolves around Jacob. Picoult brings alive how "Aspies" crave order and fall apart when confronted with change. Jacob's rigid schedule, his clothes, his food become minefields if threatened.

Emma has devoted herself to helping Jacob through endless therapies, supplements, special diets, doctors. She also ceaselessly advocates for accommodations in school for Jacob. He's doing better, but he'll never be self-sufficient. Hers is a heroic but exhausting and isolated life filled with fear about Jacob once she's gone — as well as guilt over Theo. With good reason, he resents how his whole life is dominated by his older brother's disability.

Emma's deepest grief is Jacob's loneliness. To help him, she hires a lovely grad student named Jess to tutor Jacob in how to read social cues. And to learn why he shouldn't drone on about his favorite topic, a CSI-like TV show. Jacob has a Talmudic knowledge of blood splatters, forensics, crime scenes and decomposing bodies.

This fixation makes the police suspicious when Jess turns up dead. Jacob's Asperger behaviors — twitching, little eye contact — only deepen their suspicions. The plot trots along with cops, lawyers, a trial and various twists.

The most impressive and moving chapters are the ones narrated by Jacob. Picoult captures his intelligence and his obsessiveness but also his emotional flatness and self-absorption.

Picoult doesn't whitewash the fact that Jacob experiences the world differently. Not an easy task — and one of the reasons House Rules ranks among her best.

The redemption of love through total surrender

In »The Winner Stands Alone«, Paulo Coelho is back to the important themes from Eleven minutes and The Zahir. He offers a novel full of suspense, a mirror image of the world we live in, where our commitment to luxury and the success of any cost often prevents us from hearing what the heart actually whispers.

In his new novel »The Winner Stands Alone«, Paulo Coelho takes us to the Cannes Film festival, where the so-called superclass gathers - those who have made it in the dream makers world of fashion and film. Some have even reached the very top and are afraid to lose their lofty position. Money, power and fame are at stake - values for which most people are prepared to do anything, whatever the cost.

At this modern vanity fair meet: Igor, a Russian millionaire; fashion czar Hamid from the Middle East; American actress Gabriella, eager to glean a lead role; ambitious criminal detective Savoy, hoping to resolve the case of his life, and Yasmine on the brink of a successful modelling career.

Who will succeed in identifying his or her own personal dream among the many prefabricated dreams and in making it come true?