This 2001 Spanish book is one of the biggest selling novels of all time.

Stephen King wrote, “If you thought the true gothic novel died with the 19th century, this will change your mind. Shadow is the real deal.”

I did get through it — but overall found it too long. A great premise that — ultimately — is not a story well told.

I won’t read either of the other 2 books in the series.

The novel opens in the 1940’s with the protagonist, Daniel, a boy whose father owns a bookshop in Barcelona.

One day, his father takes him to the Cemetery of Forgotten books – a secret labyrinthine library that houses rare and banned books.

Daniel is drawn to one called “The Shadow of the Wind” by Julian Carax and takes it home with him.

Daniel quickly reads and falls in love with the story. He soon discovers that the book’s mysterious author, Carax, has gone missing along with every other copy of “The Shadow of the Wind” and most of his other works.

Daniel then sets out to find out what happened to the author and his books. …

Wikipedia

Excellent.

The Giver is a 1993 American young adult dystopian novel written by Lois Lowry.

… The novel follows a 12-year-old boy named Jonas. The society has taken away pain and strife by converting to “Sameness”, a plan that has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives. Jonas is selected to inherit the position of Receiver of Memory, the person who stores all the past memories of the time before Sameness …

The Giver won the 1994 Newbery Medal and has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide as of 2018.

It has been the subject of a large body of scholarly analysis with academics considering themes of memory, religion, color and eugenics within the novel.

In Australia, Canada, and the United States, it is on many middle school reading lists.

A 2012 survey based in the U.S. designated it the fourth-best children’s novel of all time.

The author had originally intended not to write more about Jonas and the baby — but finally published Son in 2012.

… it follows Claire, the birth mother of Gabriel, the baby seen in The Giver, the first book in the series. Claire is obsessed with finding her son. …

Themes in Son include those of love, obligation, sacrifice, and loss. …

For me, the sequel was good — but not great.

I liked The A.B.C. Murders because it departed from the usual Christie assembly of likely killers all in one room. In some ways.

AND it gave Hercule Poirot more trouble than usual.

By the end of the book I was disappointed in the A.B.C. killer. Surprised he lasted as long as he did.

Quite an amazing plot. Based on a true story. A mammoth missile launcher, hidden in the woods and aimed at the US.

Hardly a day goes by when nine-year-old Laurent Lepage doesn’t cry wolf. His boundless sense of adventure and vivid imagination mean he has a tendency to concoct stories so extraordinary and so far-fetched that no one can possibly believe him.

But when Laurent disappears, former Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is faced with the possibility that one of his tall tales might have been true.

So begins a frantic search for the boy and the truth. And what Gamache uncovers deep in the forest leads back to crimes of the past, betrayal and murder, with more sinister consequences than anyone could have possibly imagined . . .

Google Books

I’d never heard of this popular murder mystery series set in rural France.

This 1st novel in a long series was first published 2008.

Martin Walker is a journalist, having worked for The Guardian for 28 years. A Brit, he now lives in the Périgord/Dordogne in Southern France.

Benoît “Bruno” Courrèges, a passionate cook and former soldier who was wounded on a peacekeeping mission in the Balkans, who never carries his official gun and who has “long since lost the key to his handcuffs” is the village policeman in sleepy St. Denis.

Like Three Pines in Quebec, astonishing things keep happening in this tiny rural village.

The book is an easy read. Bruno an entertaining and enjoyable character.

I’ll try more in the series.

Amazon