SHADOW OF THE WIND

I am not what you would call a "reader". You would never find me curled up on a window seat with a book; even as a child. While there were plenty of books in the house, I was more of a "doer". Still am.

Of course I read when I am forced to sit still as on a long journey or whatever. Curiously it turns out that the books I have enjoyed most over the years have been what other people call "heavy books".

I do read along with a book group on the internet which I find most enjoyable and gets me reading stuff I would never choose and quite often have never heard of.

Anyhow ... a couple of weeks ago Peter McA. was visiting and told me about a book he had just read. He goes to Barcelona regularly to be with his daughter and came across this author: Carlos Ruiz Zafon and one his books called Shadow of the Wind.*

I got it out of the library and have just finished it (400 pages!). It is absolutely wonderful! What do I mean? I reckon there are people who write books and there are people who tell stories. And sometimes you get both, i.e. a story-teller who can write. This man is one. In fact, he tells stories within stories within stories much like a stack of Russian dolls. (Other story-teller authors I would suggest are Emily Bronte e.g. Wuthering Heights and Karen Blixen e.g. Out of Africa.) He has been compared to Gabriel Garcia Marquez e.g. Love in the Time of Cholera.

So what is the story about? Well, it's about books, or more exactly, a book and also a bookshop and a library. All good stuff for avid book lovers.

The author's website says:

"Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the 'cemetery of lost books', a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles that have long gone out of print. To this library, a man brings his 10-year-old son Daniel one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book from the shelves and pulls out LA SOMBRA DEL VIENTO [Shadow of the Wind] by Julian Carax. ... But as he grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find."

And what's more, he says of himself exactly what I had already picked up (as above), namely, "I am in the business of storytelling. I always have been, always will be. It is what I've been doing since I was a kid. Telling stories, making up tales, bringing life to characters, devising plots, visualizing scenes and staging sequences of events, images, words and sounds that tell a story. All in exchange for a penny, a smile or a tear, and a little of your time and attention."

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* First published in Britain by Weidenfield & Nicholson, 2004. ISBN 0 753819137.
Translation by Lucia Graves, 2004.

Photo: Hampton Court, wine cellar, June 2011 on my iPhone.