NUMBER: 47TITLE: The Shadow of the Wind
AUTHOR: Carlos Ruiz Zafon
STARTED: June 23, 2005
FINISHED: June 29, 2005
PAGES: 487
GENRE: Fiction
FIRST SENTENCE: I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetary of Forgotten Books for the first time.
SUMMARY: [From barnesandnoble.com] Barcelona, 1945 - Just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes one day to find that he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again. Daniel's father coaxes him to choose a book from the spiraling labyrinth of shelves, one that, it is said, will have a special meaning for him. And Daniel so loves the book he selects, a novel called The Shadow of the Wind by one Julian Carax, that he sets out to find the rest of Carax's work. To his shock, he discovers that someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book this author has written. In fact, he may have the last of Carax's books in existence. Before Daniel knows it, his seemingly innocent quest has opened a door into one of Barcelona's darkest secrets, an epic story of murder, magic, madness, and doomed love, and before long he realizes that if he doesn't find out the truth about Julian Carax, he and those closest to him will suffer horribly.
REASON FOR READING: I needed a Z for my author list.
THOUGHTS: I picked this book up in the airport before my trip to Berlin in March. I just now got around to reading it. I don't know what I waited to long to read this. The book's plot was both well-written and interesting. I sort of guessed the "final twist" way at the beginning but that did not alter my enjoyment of the book.
Daniel was a great character. I always enjoy flawed characters and he was no exception. The way he related to the other characters was extremely interesting. It always seemed as if he was keeping them at a distance even though he truly loved them. It was great to read about his as he grew from a child to a man.
Also, the one-liners were amazing.
MISCELLANEOUS: A fiction book about books. I wish there were more like it.
KEEP/SHARE/CRINGE(?): Keep but allow the roomies to read.
RATING: 8/10 [Terrific]
CR: Until You by Bertrice Small
RN: Probably something short.
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