Why did I leave this book unread on my shelves for 6 years?!

Read it!

Wow. I don’t know who I was before this book blew into my life like a storm wind, but I don’t miss that person.

4.5/5 starsAn astonishingly engaging story within a story type of novel; the passion for books and reading introduced in the first chapter was just an appetizer before all the interconnecting twists and turns.I’ve been having a lot of good lucks lately in reading books outside of epic fantasy—my favorite sub-genre. The Shadow of the Wind is a novel that I’ve heard so many positive things about for several years; it is one of those books that’s often recommended by readers, regardless of their ma...

This is a book about books, a story about stories. It starts and ends in a library of sorts, themes and plots are echoed across decades, tied together by actors who find their roles changing, and by a pen that links two cycles of the story and has its own tale that started before and goes on beyond."the art of reading is slowly dying, it's an intimate ritual, a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great read...

:نعم..ثمة سجون أسوأ من الكلمات سجون الذكريات..صقيع الفشل عندما تقفز الشخصيات الخيالية خارج صفحات الكتب..لتصحح مفاهيمك و تنغص حياتك و تفتح عينيك قسرا ا"الكتابة ليست سوي مرآة نرى فيها ما نمتلكه في دواخلنا..و القراءة تحتم علينا إعمال القلب و العقل معاوهما عملتان نادرتان الآن!ا جذبتني؛منذ ان قرأت الريفيو الانجليزي لمحمد عربي عنها.. و رايت ذلك الرسم القاتم الغامض لأب و ابنه: ينطلقان في ظل ريح عاتية الى..مقبرة الكتب المنسية.. يا له من اسم غامض موحي!!..و مقبض ايضا لكل محبي الكتب..و مع رواية ملعونة و قل...

The fact is that I’ll never be able to write a real review for this book. Here is why : 1. I’m not good enough. I’m not now and I’ll never be. It doesn’t matter how many books you have read or how smart you are, you’ll never be good enough for that. You won’t be able to find exact words and it’s not just you. Only person who can is the author himself, but I think he already said everything he wanted. Don’t believe me? - “Books are mirrors - you only see in them what you already have inside you.”...

I can't believe someone actually published this book. Even worse, in my opinion is the fact that this book is on the New York Times Bestseller List. How is this possible? It must only mean that there are a lot of people out there that think very differently from me. Don't you be one of them. Seriously. Don't be fooled by this book. It is insipid, lame, and poorly written. First. The prose is so overblown that the author uses three adjectives for every single noun. Count them. He evidently was to...

After reading The Shadow of the Wind, I was left with somewhat mixed feelings. On the one hand, this is such a beautifully written book, and is in essence an ode to literature. On the other hand, there are some serious flaws which distracts from the whole experience. The best thing about the book, in my opinion, is Zafon's skill in artistic writing. It reminds me of why I love to read in the first place, and makes me wish I could write as beautiful as this. The book contains lots of memorable qu...

I read the opening few pages and instantly knew 3 things:1. I was going to love this book.2. I needed a whole pad of post-its to mark quotes.3. I wanted to read this in Spanish for the rich poetry the language would add.A young boy Daniel is taken by his father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and told to salvage a book which he must take stewardship over. He choses a novel—or maybe it chose him—that touches him, stirs his desire for literature, and forever entangles him with the fate of the b...

There's probably nothing much I "learned" in the introspective sense, but this is a novel like a novel ought to be. This is an epic film on paper, gloomy and engaging, smokey, noir with crumbling ruins, young love, disfigurment, lust, torture...the stuff of Dumas, DuMauier and, as of late, The Historian. I woke up at five a.m. and had to sweet talk myself back to sleep: all I wanted to do was read. One Friday, after work, I took sanctuary in The Hotel Biron, those little tables in the dark, page...