Do you know of any fictional books featuring book dealers as characters?
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruis Zaphon Call it the “book book” genre: this international sensation (it has sold in more than 20 countries and been number one on the Spanish best-seller list), newly translated into English, has books and storytelling–and a single, physical book–at its heart. In post-World War II Barcelona, young Daniel is taken by his bookseller father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a massive sanctuary where books are guarded from oblivion. Told to choose one book to protect, he selects The Shadow of the Wind, by Julian Carax. He reads it, loves it, and soon learns it is both very valuable and very much in danger because someone is determinedly burning every copy of every book written by the obscure Carax. To call this book–Zafon’s Shadow of the Wind– old-fashioned is to mean it in the best way. It’s big, chock-full of unusual characters, and strong in its sense of place. Daniel’s initiation into the mysteries of adulthood is given the same weight as the
