The Winner Stands Alone

By: Paulo Coelho

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

The beloved, best-selling international author of The Alchemist returns with another haunting novel, a thrilling journey into our constant fascination with the worlds of fame, fortune, and celebrity.

A profound meditation on personal power and innocent dreams that are manipulated or undone by success, The Winner Stands Alone is set in the exciting worlds of fashion and cinema. Taking place over the course of twenty-four hours during the Cannes Film Festival, it is the story of Igor, a successful, driven Russian entrepreneur who will go to the darkest lengths to reclaim a lost love - his ex-wife, Ewa. Believing that his life with Ewa was divinely ordained, Igor once told her that he would destroy whole worlds to get her back. The conflict between an individual evil force and society emerges, and as the novel unfolds, morality is derailed.

Meet the players and poseurs behind the scenes at Cannes: the "Superclass" of producers, actors, designers, and supermodels, as well as the aspiring starlets, has-been stars, and jaded hangers-on. Adroitly interweaving the characters' stories, Paulo Coelho uses his 12th novel to paint an engrossing picture of a world overrun by glamour and excess, and shows us the possibly dire consequences of our obsession with fame.

©2008 Paulo Coelho (P)2009 HarperCollins Publishers

I thoroughly enjoyed the readers different voices

I thoroughly enjoyed the reader opting for different voices for men, women, Russians and Americans. what a cool book! very thought provoking.

not the best of Coelho's work

It was interesting but not mind-blowing. I prefer his older books. The story topic, however, was interesting and current.

Didn’t reveal the Russian soul

Coelho failed to reveal the Russian soul. The main character acts more like German or Swiss. I loved the audiobook performance and the story, mostly.

Singsong

Struggled to finish because of the singsong and almost emotionless narration. The voices are good though. But aside from that, the story seems to be too slow, oftentimes diving needlesly into the mind of the character. Also, what happened to the police?

A great book

A wonderful book that I found to be developmental and maturative for a young man coming of age such as myself. I found this book to be relatable and generally worthwhile to get through. I further highly recommend this book.

one word: Wow

THE ENDING WAS RIVETTING! My heart pounded with fear, excitement, worry. Many times I thought there was a parts of the story that were over explained, yet I delighted to learn something new and interesting. There are so many books that I did not finish in my lifetime because they got too boring. However, while I'm not crazy about all the subjects this author writes about, I DO FINISH every one of his books. Paulo Coelho does NOT disappoint.

Straightforward story Great Performance

This is very different from Paulo Coelhos other books however the story is very straightforward. The actions of the characters except Jasmines are predictable.

The narrator was fantastic!

The narrator added so much to this story, the different accents- I especially enjoyed the androgyny. Wonderful and unusual story.

Not much inspiration here

Many of Coelho's books are quite thought provoking, this was a long rant against fame fortune and fashion.... with a bit of psychopathy thrown in for "good" measure.

Hate Coelhos "new style"

skip this book. does NOT have the wise nor witty writing. does not have the style of Coelho. It is the only book in his collection I would NOT RECOMMEND. Awful. boring. simplistic predictable characters.