One week from now, 6pm. We’re meeting, discussing the book club and interests in general, and talking about the first chapter of the book I chose, The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.
Basically I’m winging it. …Yup, should be good.
Weeks 3 and 4 of 2013:
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Chill Factor by Rachel Caine
The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Storm Front by Jim Butcher
Every Day by David Levithan
(This is two at once because I didn’t get a chance to update while in Atlanta. Still a bit behind though)
Always Reblog
(Source: libraryland)
I spent an hour sitting here reading with the distinct and clear feeling my entire body was out of proportion. Arms longer than usual, hangs and fingers ginormous and swollen, feet completely gone. And when I looked at my body from where I was sitting, I saw it like that.
I can’t think about me speaking outloud without a premonition of physical destruction. Things breaking just because words leave my mouth. And trying to text somebody my feelings, I feel as if I’m actually damaging our friendship doing so.
Not to mention I lost track of time three or four times today. And not just this whole “Oh my, time when by so fast”. More like I look at the clock and it’s 6:40 and I look back later and it’s 5:20 and my phone confirms it.
And that feeling of heart racing, blooding pumping terror you get when you think something is in the room watching you? Yup, had that.
But it’s mostly ok because I read another book by Carlos Ruiz Zafón today and he’s my favorite author.
The Shadow of the Wind (by Carlos Ruiz Zafón)
Mystery (2001; Translated from Spanish in 2004)
Suggested by theunbearablelightnessofmyself.
“Once, in my father’s bookshop, I heard a regular customer say that few things leaves a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart.”
I had no idea what I was getting into when this book was suggested to me. (Which is something more of y’all should do, it gets me to read stuff outside my preferred genres.) I had never heard this title or author, but from the very beginning I was completely sucked in.
The story begins in Barcelona. It’s the 1920s, after the Spanish Civil War. Daniel Sempere is the son of a local bookshop owner who is well liked in the neighborhood, though his mother is dead and Daniel has begun to forget her. One night, his father takes him to a secret place which he is forbidden from ever telling anyone about, including his best friend Thomas. The place is called the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. It’s an overwhelmingly large, yet secret, library of books protected by a small number of initiates. When a person is invited into the library, they are allowed to take a single book and must protect it for live.
Daniel happens to find the titular book The Shadow of the Wind, written by one Julián Carax. He reads it that night, becoming completely enraptured with it. From then on, he does everything he can to find out more about the author and attempts to find any other books he wrote. But the deeper he digs, the stranger things get. It seems that somebody is also hunting down Carax’s books, but not to read. Instead, he’s burning them and he won’t stop until he’s got Daniel’s book too.
Along the way, as Daniel begins to learn of Carax’s life, it seems his life is beginning to mirror the dead author’s and the parallels are disturbing. Of course, he also deals with what every boy growing up deals with: falling in love, working for his father, and trying to keep his friendship intact. This book was a beautiful tale I’m obviously going to read again. I only wish I could read Spanish so I could read it in its original language.
