These notes were collected in celebration of Paulo Coelho's birthday: August 24, 1947 His novel, Veronika Decides to Die tells the story of 24-year-old Slovenian Veronika, who appears to have everything in life going for her, but who decides to kill herself. This book is partly based on Coelho's experience in various mental institutions, and deals with the subject of madness. The gist of the message is that "collective madness is called sanity". The whole book is available in audio format on YouTube! Movie trailer for film based on the book ... There are some great ecards by Paulo Coelho available on his website: Paulo Coelho Blog