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I am now about half way through The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón and it is a fascinating and fantastic book. The writing is wonderful and some of the prose work is just stunning and brilliant. The story is gripping and engaging, a real page turner which is part mystery and part thriller and draws the reader into quite the bibliophilic adventure. A definite must read for lovers of books. The story in some ways reminds me of the movie Ninth Gate which I loved.

The book focuses upon a maturing youth Daniel who works for his other at his bookstore. As a sort of rite of passage he is brought into a place known as The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a place where books that have faded out of the mind of the rest of the world are kept until they cane be revived again. He is told to pick out one single book which he will then be in charge of.

Daniel is drawn to a book called The Shadow of the Wind by a little known and mysterious author Julian Carax. After reading the book Daniel becomes fixated on learning more about the author and tracking down other books he has written. A journey which will open up a whole new can of warms as mysterious and strange things start to open while the clues slowly unravel many of which seem to offer even more questions than answers.

The book is also in part a coming of age story as Daniel grapples with himself in relation to the female sex and the strange and somewhat humorous encounters he has along the way in his efforts of struggling between lust and love.

I read this book last year and also loved it. He wrote another book after this one which is not a sequel, The Angel's Game , but the characters and places are mentioned. However, I didn't find it nearly as good as The Shadow of the Wind.

SO good! I loved the way Zafon wrote about books and reading. The family history mystery aspect was very intriguing to me.