not just because it is my pick, lol. but it's a great fun story! books! barcelona! a mystery! eeee

so get going on "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

i will have to get myself a copy because i only have it in spanish (La sombra del viento) but i want to reread along with you

awesome cover

anyway it is set in barcelona, in the gothic quarter, right after the spanish civil war. and i read it in barcelona when i was teaching there in 2010, and it was wonderful to walk around the places

described in the book.

gee, who could possibly be speaking

i'm waiting for it from the library! i think i'm next in line woot woot

they even have a tour but it was like 80 euros so i just made my own damn tour

Lovely book

like i would walk from the metro to the coffee shop and always walk under this portico (is this a portico?) in the gothic quarter with the angels looking down at you

which are in the book and they are kind of creepy

heeeeere they are looking at youuuu

sorry, i just got all excited about reading this book again (headspin)

the new york times book review described it as: ''Gabriel García Márquez meets Umberto Eco meets Jorge Luis Borges'' for a sprawling magic show, exasperatingly tricky and mostly wonderful,

by the Spanish novelist Carlos Ruiz Zafón. The three illustrious meeters must surely have been drinking and they weave about a little, but steady remarkably as the pages go by.

OKAY HAVE I SOLD YOU ON THIS BOOK YET

YES

if so come join us on april 13 lol

yay

mako does that mean you might get it before our NYC weekend? should i bring my copy too and we can have a reading session?

samakaza you read the second book, too, right?

another thing our book clubbers might like is that this is the first in a trilogy. i know some of us have gone on to read the rest of the series for books our group liked!

okay i have a meeting now i am done pushing this for now

I read the second book but I read it first!

yeah i might have it by nyc time! we can sit in the park and read if the weather is nice lol

samakaza chronologically that makes sense then but I wonder how the order affects how you see or take in the story, as the second book goes about three decades back right? isn't it 1920s?

ilovemesomesharks let me know so I can bring my copy! that sounds potentially dreamy

Yeah so it was like reading in chronological order lol

yes! except I remember getting to the second book and being like aw! now we get to see him as a young man

I just put it on hold @ library and I see a review there that said she'd first read it in Spanish, and the the English translation was TERRIFIC

awesome! that is always a concern when reading a translation

I can't speak to the spanish (very well anyway), but the english is great

Comparing it to GMM for me is a HUGE turnoff. But I like how excited you are about it. I'm waiting for the audio from the public library, but we have a hard copy at my library, so I'll start that next week.

you'll like it, alanna!

it's all about booooooks

and book mysteries

it will speak to your librarian heart

Ok!