Book Bearings
The Shadow of the Wind
Part of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series
- 528 pages · about 9 hours
- First published 2001
- 99 editions
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1 About this book
Barcelona, 1945. Daniel Sempere, the young son of a bookseller, is taken by his father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a secret, labyrinthine library of rare and banned volumes. He chooses one to take home: The Shadow of the Wind, by a little-known author named Julián Carax, and falls in love with it. When he looks for Carax's other novels, he learns that someone has been seeking out every copy and destroying them. As Daniel grows up, his search for the truth about Carax draws him into a maze of intrigue and buried secrets in the dark years after the Spanish Civil War. Carlos Ruiz Zafón's novel, published in Spanish in 2001, is the first of his Cemetery of Forgotten Books series.
- Literary fiction
- Mystery
- Thrillers
- Mothers and sons
- Widowers
- Young men
- Rare books
- Antiquarian booksellers
2 What to expect
A literary mystery set in Barcelona after the Spanish Civil War: a bookseller's son finds a forgotten novel and sets out to learn why someone is destroying every copy of its author's work. It is a gothic tale of books, thwarted love and long-buried crimes, a story within a story that blends suspense with historical fiction. The prose is rich and romantic, the plot intricate and long, and the city's dark streets are a large part of its appeal.
Good for readers who want: a gothic literary mystery, a love of books, and atmospheric Barcelona.
3 About Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
4 More by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
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