Jan *The Shadow of the Wind *Carlos Ruiz Zafon

From the back cover, “Barcelona, 1945 - Just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, and a boy named Daniel awakes one day to find that he can no longer remember his mother’s face. To console his only child, Daniel’s widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona’s guild of rare book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world. Daniel’s father coaxes him to choose a book that will have a special meaning for him. And Daniel so loves the book he selects, a novel called The Shadow of the Wind by one Julian Carax, that he sets out to find the rest of Carax’s work. To his shock, he discovers that someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book this author has written. In fact he may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Before Daniel knows it, his innocent quest has opened a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets, an epic story of murder, magic, madness, and doomed love.

“An uncannily absorbing historical mystery, a heart-piercing romance, and a moving homage to the mystical power of books, The Shadow of the Wind is a triumph of the storyteller’s art.”

Amen! I really liked the way this book started and ended and most of the parts in between. I loved that Daniel’s life paralleled Julian’s and that in the end …. Oops -- don’t want to give away the ending. You gotta read this if you’re a book lover. And even if you’re not.

Jan Pruatt, Book Review *Geraldine Brooks *People of the Book

On April 2, 2008, Geraldine Brooks was in Seattle to discuss People of the Book. So I’m using my write-up of that time for this book review.

Geraldine Brooks (aka Mrs. Tony Horowitz) opened her discussion of People of the Book with pictures from the Sophia Haggadah. She told from whence it come -- Spain, 1480 -- the time of the Jewish influence. The story takes Hanna Heath, a book conservator, in quest of the books’ long journey through history through Jewish, Muslim and Christian hands, and its rediscovery in 1996. She told how she was finally able to stick the stories of the Haggadah together and did so by the things that were found in the spine of the book (an insect’s wing, a white hair, saltwater crystals).

A hand-out listed other titles reflective of Brook books. For example, another novel that features a woman book conservator is Robert Hellenga’s The Sixteen Pleasures, about a book of erotic drawings and sonnets from the sixteenth century that is discovered in Florence, Italy after the devastating floods of 1996.

Her fiction title Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague, is a dramatic account of a young woman, a charismatic preacher, and a village isolated by sickness in 1660’s England. Another book in which the plague is a driving force is Phillip Gooden’s mystery Mask of Night, also set in 17th century London.

Brooks is also author of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize Winning book, March, a novel set during the US Civil War, much of it told from the point of view of the father of Alcott’s Little Women. As a chaplain in the Union army, March experiences not only the horrors of war, but also the terrible toll of slavery and racism. Another Civil War story told from multiple viewpoints in Robert Hicks The Widow of the South, in which an unusual love story unfolds, even amid the carnage of war.

As a journalist, Brooks spent years covering far-flung places on the globe as a correspondent for The Wall Street Journal where she met her husband. Her non-fiction book, Nine Parts of Desire: the Hidden World of Islamic Women, reveals the surprising true-life experiences of Middle-Eastern women and the cultural and political forces that shape their lives.

At the end of her talk, she invited questions like who are her favorite authors to which she replied -- Hemingway, William Styron, Tim Winton. She’s currently working on another period book that she didn’t really want to discuss as most authors don’t. In the course of her discussion she revealed that as a nine year old Aussie girl, she fell in love with a book. She found in the want ads that the book was from a series and she began saving to buy it. While her family was poor, they knew that books were as important as food and clothing so managed to buy it for her. She laid the books out on the dining room floor and felt her body quivering, her mind finding itself in a new dimension she’d never experienced before nor would again until she was about 15. It was lust! She doesn’t intend to write any more non-fiction because the research is so open-ended and would take her away from her son. She’d rather write historical fiction because its fun to imagine “what if“.

Jan Pruatt, Book Review *Patrick O'Brian *The Reverse of the Medal

From the back cover - “In the early 1800s, the British Navy stands as the only bulwark against the militant fanaticism of Napoleonic France.

“Captain Jack Aubrey, R. N., ashore after a successful tour of duty, is persuaded by a casual acquaintance to make certain investment in the city. This innocent decision ensnares him in the London criminal underground and in government espionage, the province of his friend Stephen Maturin. Is Aubrey’s humiliation and the threatened ruin of his career a deliberate plot? This dark tale is a fitting backdrop to the brilliant characterization, sparkling dialogue, and meticulous detail which O’Brian’s readers have come to expect.”

While this is a series that at least one movie is based on, I was less than thrilled with the plot and characterization of these people, especially. I guess I’m spoiled by the Dick Sharpe fellow from the series by Bernard Cornwell.

Jan's 100 List

FILL IN THE GAPS CHALLENGE - 2009 - 2014

My list of 100-to-be-read by 2014 is a mixture of many things since I’m quite an eclectic reader. My tbr shelf, 1001 books to read before you die, desire to read a second book by an author, reading Pulitzer Prize winner authors biographies and satisfying various challenges combine to make this list, as follows:

A

1. Abaunza, Virginia – James Patterson

2. Ali, Ayaan Hirsi - Infidel

3. Anderson’s Fairy Tales

4. Asimov, Isaac – Foundation

5. Asimov, Isaac – I, Robot

B

6. Bartlett, Anne – Knitting

7. Bailey, Carolyn – Miss Hickory

8. Bealer, Alex W. – Only the Names Remain: The Cherokee

9. Best American Short Stories

10. Bible (parts)

11. Blotner, Joseph – Robert Penn Warren

12. Boyleston, H. D. – another Sue Barton book

13. Brooks, Geraldine – People of the Book

14. Buck , Pearl – A Bridge for Passing

C

15. Carroll, Lewis – The Complete Works of

16. Chevalier, Tracy – Girl with a Pearl Earring

17. Childs, Laura – The Jasmine Moon

18. Cleland, John – Memoirs of Maria Brown

19. Conroy, Pat – The Great Santini

20. Copeland, Germane - Prayers that Avail Much for Kids

21. Crook, Elizabeth – Night Journal

22. Crummey, Michael – River Thieves

D

23. Dale, Norman – The Exciting Journey

24. Dart, Iris Ranier – The Stork Club

25. Dart, Iris Ranier – When I Fall in Love

26. Dass, Ram – How Can I Help?

27. Didion, Joan – The White Album

28. Dinesan, Isak – Out of Africa

29. Dostoevsky, Fodor – Crime and Punishment

30. Dostoevsky, Fodor – The Idiot/Brothers Karamazov

31. Dubus, Andre III – House of Sand and Fog

E

32. Eaton, Clement – Henry Clay

33. Evans, Richard Paul – The Christmas Box

F

34. Faulkner, William – Selected Letters of

35. Foer, Jonathan Safran – Everything is Illuminated

36. Foote, John Taintor – The Wedding & Other Angling Tales

37. Friedman, Thomas – From Beirut to Jerusalem

38. Frizzell, Gregory – Returning to Holiness

39. Fulghum, Robert – It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It

G

40. Gaarder, Jostein – Sophie’s World

41. Gainham, Sarah – Take Over Bid

42. Gilbert, Sarah Goldsmith – Ferber: A Biography

43. Gilroy, Mark (created by) – Nightstand Read

44. Goldberg, Myla – Time’s Magpie

45. Grimes, Martha – The Horse You Came In On

H

46. Hargrove, Jim – Daniel Boone: Pioneer Trailblazer

47. Harrer, Heinrich – Seven Years in Tibet

48. Hersey, John – Here to Stay

I

49. Irving, John – The Cider House Rules

J

50. Joseph, Ronald – The Power

51. Johnson, Josephine – Seven Houses

52. Joyce, James - Ulysses

K

53. Kafka, Franz – the Trial

54. Kazantzakis, Nikos – Zorba the Greek

55. King, Larry – Larry King

56. Kipling, Rudyard – Kim

L

57. Lewis, Grace Hegger – With Love from Gracie

58. Lewis, R. W. B. – Edith Wharton

59. Lin, Jan - Living Inside Out

M

60. Mann, Thomas – Death in Venice

61. Martin, Lee – The Bright Forever

62. Matthiessen, Peter – African Silences

63. Maxwell, Katie – Bedside Manners

64. Mayle, Peter – Anything Considered

65. Mitchell, Margaret – Letters of

66. Momaday, N. Scott – The Names

67. Morgan, Margo – Mutant Message Down Under

68. Mortimer, John – Paradise Postponed

69. Mueller, Melinda – Apocrypha

70. Muir, John – The 8 Wilderness Discovery

N

71. Nabokov, Vladimir - Lolita

72. Niffenegger, Audrey – The Time Traveler’s Wife

O

73. O’Brian, Patrick – The Reverse of the Medal

P

74. Porter, Katharine Anne – The Never Ending Wrong

Q

75. Quinn, Lin – The Best Mud Pie

R

76. Remarque, Erich Maria – Full Circle

77. Richman, Sidney – Bernard Malamud

78. Robinson, Marilynne - Housekeeping

79. Rolheiser, Ronald – The Holy Longing

80. Rolheiser, Ronald - The Shattered Lantern

81. Rushdie, Salman - Fury

82. Rys, Jean – Voyage in the Dark

S

83. Searles, John – Strange but True

84. Shaker/Barrows – The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society

85. Shakespeare, William – some plays

86. Shedd, Charlie – The Best Dad is a Good Lover

87. Sidney, Margaret – The Five Little Peppers at School

T

88. Tan, Amy – Saving Fish from Drowning

89. Tarkington, Booth – Your Amiable Uncle

90. Theroux, Paul – The Great Railway Bazaar

91. Turner, Ann – Dakota Dugout

U

92. Updike, John – Hugging the Shore

93. Updike, John – Rabbit Remembered

V

94. Van Fleet, Matthew – One Yellow Lion

95. Van Leeuwan, Nancy – Going West

96. Vickers, Salley –The Other Side of You

W

97. Walker, Alice – The Same River Twice

98. Waugh, Evelyn – Black Mischief

99. West, Rebecca – Black Lamb and Grey Falcon

100. Wiederkehr, Macarina – Seasons of Your Heart

101. Wilder, Laura Ingalls – Little Town on the Prairie

102. Wold, Joanne – The Way it Was

103. Wroblewski, David – The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

X

104. Xingjian, Gao – Soul Mountain

Y

105. Yancey, Philip – Finding God in Unexpected Places

Z

106. Zafon, Carlos Ruiz – The Shadow of the Wind

107. Zola, Emile – Terminal

108. Zola, Emile – Therese Raquin

Miscellaneous

Pulitzer Prize Winners for Fiction –

109. 2010

110. 2011

111. 2012

112. 2013

113. 2014