The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Warning: I'm going to rave about this book; proceed with caution.

I'm not quite sure why I picked this up. Maybe it was because someone likened the writing to Dickens', Eco's, or Garcia-Marquez'. Maybe it was because someone said it had elements in common with the movie "Angel Heart". Maybe it was because it spent a long, long time in the best sellers list in Spain. In any case, what matters is that I did read this fantastic book, which I enjoyed more than any other in the last year.

The plot is very intriguing and I won't tell you much about it other than this: A boy finds a book in this mysterious "Cemetery of Forgotten Books". He wants to read more by the same author and discovers that those titles are being systematically hunted down and burned by this mysterious man, who takes the name given to the devil himself in one of these novels. The search for the books and for information on their author is the magical spark that leads to the development of the entire book. I enjoyed the plot (that's all I can say without presenting spoilers), but what I liked the best was how the story was told. Zafon writes beautiful prose that casts a fog of romance about the most inconsequential facts. A screenplay from this book could hardly turn out to be a more vivid, graphic experience.

It's not been three weeks since I finished this book and all I can think about it how much I wish I could read it again for the first time. I found it extremely moving, surprising, and poetic. This kept me reading very late into the night, yearning to know what followed but heart-broken that my drive would only propel me faster toward the inevitable end. The characters stayed with my for several days - I was reluctant to start another book for fear of losing the sweet aftertaste this story left me. I recommend this to anyone who would enjoys a very human coming of age tale, with deep explorations into the human soul, with strong elements of mystery, history, romance, and political intrigue.

By the time I finished this book, 2005 was only barely half-way through, but I'm confident that I won't be able to read anything that will top it this year. I found this book to be one of those gems that can only rarely be produced and feel sorry for Zafon in that anything else he writes in the rest of his career as a writer might be unfavorably compared to this wonderful book.