Magical realism has never been my thing and yet I really enjoyed this story within a story by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. In post WWI Barcelona, a young boy lays claim to a work by Julian Carax in the "Cemetery of Forgotten Books" that becomes his sole responsibility to preserve. He stays awake all night reading the tale of a boy searching for his father and vows to find everything the author has written. As the son of an antiquarian book dealer with lots of contacts, it should be a fairly easy task, but, in fact, it turns out that someone has been systematically searching out the works of Carax and burning them. Motherless Daniel falls in love with the blind (and much older) daughter of another book dealer as he reads the book to her and is later broken hearted to find she has taken a lover. In the course of his quest to solve the mystery of the disappearing books, he is threatened by a character from the book, rescues and partners with a homeless man who is really a former spy, tracks down and gets involved with several people who knew Carax, and eventually finds his true love. This is a richly detailed, darkly Gothic and engrossing novel. Well-translated and sumptuous in creating the atmosphere of a city steeped in history and struggling to find a future.
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