the shadow of the wind by carlos ruíz zafón

Daniel finds a book called The Shadow of the Wind by the elusive Julián Caráx, and falls in love with it.

Here, the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, watched over by the gargoyle-ish Isaac, holds books that have been loved, lost, sometimes damaged, occasionally destroyed, but always housed to maintain their spirit. His father, attempting to comfort him one morning, takes him to an old castle, inside which is a huge, twisting, high-ceilinged labyrinth of a library, along the vast, amazing lines of Jorge Luis Borges and Umberto Eco. Daniel, who grows up as the book progresses, has lost his mother during the Spanish Civil War. The book’s premise is simple, but it blossoms like a gorgeous black flower into an epic tale. The Shadow of the Wind is set in post-WWII Barcelona, and has tongue-in-cheek melodrama, mystery, forbidden love, a spooky mansion, hints of the supernatural, a strange, scarred stalker in black who haunts the steps of the main character and narrator Daniel, and best of all, a huge Cemetery of Forgotten Books.Īs much a love story about books as it is anything else – with lines such as “ Few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart,” this book will sing to anyone who adores reading and escapes into literary worlds on a regular basis.

One of the books I’d want to have with me if stranded on a desert island, this noir-style novel has everything you could want in an adventure story.

The shadow of the wind by carlos ruíz zafón