The Hope of Having Pen and Voice Returned: The Book List

I finished reading the absolutely lovely novel, The Shadow of the Wind, earlier this evening. Author Ruiz Zafón and translator Lucia Graves (Robert Graves’ daughter) have wrought a wonderful tale of parallel lives with two very different endings. The plot is grounded in the love of books, as a reader, writer, shopkeeper. As I wandered through the used bookstores this past weekend, I thought that it would be a nice life, being a bookseller, if giants like Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Amazon.com didn’t have a stranglehold on the market, and many people didn’t find reading to be a boring enterprise. Of course, I wouldn’t want a place like Shaman Drum, but I though it’d be a quiet life all the same, keeping watch over classics and rarities. The air of The Shadow of the Wind reminded me of those used bookstores, and why it would be nice to be so close to them at all times; you never know when the paper might come to life for you.

This novel, as I mentioned, was beautiful. In hindsight, the plot would’ve been easy to figure out had I not been so distracted by the vivid descriptions of Barcelona, the humorous interjections of one of the characters, and the desire to see one of the hard-luck cases win for once. Had I been paying closer attention to the construction of the novel, I would’ve guessed the ending far in advance, but I was too taken by the language and the characters to realize that a throwaway line was a clue. The realization that I could’ve figured it out doesn’t dim my view of the book; I commend the author and the translator for drawing me into the life of the book so easily.

This is one of those books that makes you wish you could write like the author does. That makes you want to take up the pen and do some practicing so that the story you sort of know resides in you will finally come out in all its glory.

Lovely, lovely, lovely. That’s the best word there is for it, and I highly recommend The Shadow of the Wind.

Now, though, what to read? So many to choose from, one Don Quixote still lingering in limbo. Hmm . . . onto the book list:

Finished:

1) The Last Days of Henry VIII: Conspiracy, Treason and Heresy at the Court of the Dying Tyrant by Robert Hutchinson
2) Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross
3) Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
4) Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
5) One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
6) Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
7) The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell
8) Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D. Ehrman
9) Saving the World by Julia Alvarez
10) The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
11) The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Re-read:

1) Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore

Currently Reading:

1) Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Translation by Edith Grossman)

Waiting To Be Read (Already Purchased, Got as Gifts, Borrowed from My Boyfriend, or Otherwise Accessible without the Use of Funds, But Not an Assurance That I Will Read These Before I Buy More Books):

1) Lost for Words: Hidden History of Oxford English Dictionary by Lynda Mugglestone
2) Whose Bible Is It?: A History of the Scripture through the Ages by Jaroslav Pelikan
3) Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich