Shadow of the wind - Carlos Ruis Zaffon
https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/products/shadow-of-the-wind-book-carlos-ruiz-zafon-9780753820254?sku=GOR000938618&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=19545754761&gbraid=0AAAAADZzAIDXzaFbz-nnaXvXvAtMuQWzH&gclid=Cj0KCQjwuvrBBhDcARIsAKRrkjfmLX3DaDdXfyyYs3_M_XBR1dk7luwh6T4DR-A7UKOM-CvIAn3_OuEaAnOoEALw_wcB
Just finished this. I met a chap in a pub and we got chatting and turned out we both liked books so he decided to give me a load of books he liked. I get irrationally irked by this behaviour. I feel that he is suggesting I don't know how to find books. I know he is suggesting things he likes and wants me to as well. Anyway - the other thing I do is feel beholden to read them. So I read this. I noticed with some trepidation that Richard and Judy had recommended it and also it had sold four kajillion copies world wide.
Anyway - I'm still a bit conflicted. I did enjoy it but things about it annoyed me - not least the 500+ pages - no need.
I like the characters apart from Carrax and I like how it was a gothic thriller comedy horror thing. It was funny in parts and pretty shocking in parts. Also the weather in Barcelona was constantly grim. Which I didn't like. It was too flabby as well - huge tracts of explaining the story from multiple POVs that were effectively the same. It also felt a bit like it had been written for a film. Very film noir - characters wreathed in cigarette smoke hiding their faces and the like.
He has also given me three others of this Zafon fellah and some of those Mitch Albom books - all a bit populist really.
I am reading 1983 by Tom Cox now and it is joyous.
