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Simon's Reviews > The Shadow of the Wind
The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)
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It's been a couple years since I read this book so I shouldn't and won't go into details, but the effect has lingered all this time. There's no other book I'm quicker to recommend than this one. It's not that it's particularly important in a lot of the ways "important" books are, it's just that it works as pure reading pleasure (and sometimes, isn't that enough?); so I find reviews from people desperate to discover structural flaws and stylistic cliches to be totally missing the point. Buy it new, breathe in the perfume of those pages, tell your friends and family you're going to be busy for a few days and disappear into it.
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The Shadow of the Wind.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
January 1, 2005
–
Finished Reading
July 8, 2007
– Shelved
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Chiara
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rated it 5 stars
Mar 14, 2011 06:41AM
totally agree
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I totally agree too. U summed the book up perfectly! ^5
Exactly how I feel about it.
Perfect summation. Perfect.
I've read it four times (when I had to 'recover' from a particularly crappy book) and I still was not able to put it down. This book marks a certain 'color' in your mind. I can't explain it, but I love it. This is one of those books that are better than sex.
I just emerged from my latest disappearance, the second I've had into this book. I read it probably 5 years ago and had completely forgotten all the brilliant twists and turns the narrative takes. I love it even more after my second read and already I can't wait to read it again! Great review and I wholly agree on all counts!
I agree with your take on reviews. Pure enjoyment and let us not pick it to death. I will read this book again. I find a lot of reviewers are so full of themselves that the whole point of the review is more about themselves than the book.
Two things struck me about your review. The first is how this is, while not always the first book I recommend (if you put a gun to my head and tell me that I had to choose one, I think I would go with Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of..,) but it is certainly top five. The second thing I literally found myself murmuring "yeah" to as I read your review was the fact that some reviewers tend to dissect books to such a cellular level they seem to miss providing the reader with the most crucial element: did they enjoy the friggin' thing?
You have completely identified the ultimate purpose of books: enjoyment. I have not found a book in the past few years to come close to the pure enjoyment I got from reading this book. I will return to it again and again and again.
i am actually on my 3rd time reading thisbook at the present time. There is just something about it that just keeps bringing me back!
That's funny...because I just returned from Barnes and Noble after buying this book for probably the fifth time. I seem to give it away more than most. Probably because I would rank it in my top 5 favorite books of all time and it is so much easier to give a person a book and expect that they will read it. But there are worse ways of spending a Saturday morning.
At the present time, I am on my 3rd or 4th reading of "Shadow of the Wind." Storytelling at its absolute best. Something just keeps calling me back!
Great review Simon!
Yes all of this exactly!
My all time favourite book too. I've bought about six copies of it since it was first publishedAnd given it to friends and family.
It's as a good book should be, it has it all, it's the supermodel of books with brains.
It's got mystery, romance, tragedy and comedy and some supernatural thrown in as well.
I'm still trying to find a book as rich as this but I'm still looking.
My all time favourite book too. I've bought about six copies of it since it was first publishedAnd given it to friends and family.
It's as a good book should be, it has it all, it's the supermodel of books with brains.
It's got mystery, romance, tragedy and comedy and some supernatural thrown in as well.
I'm still trying to find a book as rich as this but I'm still looking.
My all time favourite book too. I've bought about six copies of it since it was first publishedAnd given it to friends and family.
It's as a good book should be, it has it all, it's the supermodel of books with brains.
It's got mystery, romance, tragedy and comedy and some supernatural thrown in as well.
I'm still trying to find a book as rich as this but I'm still looking.
I agree - best book. So special.
No doubt it's a great book and an engaging story. But the structural "flaws" did affect the whole reading experience, at least for me. Too much telling makes the story a bit flat and dull to read, specially the long letter at the end.
I felt exactly the same way... I was sucked into the characters' world and didn;t want to leave. I think the memory of this book will dwell in me always.
You nailed it 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
