New Book: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I bought this book during Christmas vacation but it's just yesterday that I began reading it. I was planning to buy The Girl with A Dragon Tattoo but had second thoughts because it will be shown in theaters anyway. And then I thought of buying another Mitch Albom book but I decided I'd like to read a 'new' book... from an unknown author (at least for me). I moved to another shelf and saw this The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon that sat quietly on the far side. 

And so here I am, now hooked reading the book, just like everyone else who has read it.

A sneak peek:

Barcelona, 1945 - just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his eleventh birthday to find he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widow father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again. Daniel's father coaxes him to choose a volume from the spiraling labyrinth of shelves, one that, it is said, will have a special meaning for him. And Daniel so loves the novel he selects, The Shadow of the Wind by one Julian Carax, that he sets out to find the rest of Carax's work. To his shock, he discovers that someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book this author has written. In fact, he may have the last one in existence. Before Daniel knows it his seemingly innocent quest has opened a door into one of Barcelona's darkest secrets, an epic story of murder, magic, madness and doomed love. And long before he realizes that if he doesn't find out the truth about Julian Carax, he and those closest to him will suffer horribly.

(Synopsis by bookbrowse.com)