88 books like The Shadow of the Wind

By Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Lucia Graves (translator),

Here are 88 books that The Shadow of the Wind fans have personally recommended if you like The Shadow of the Wind. Shepherd is a community of 10,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Kidnapped

David Cairns Author Of The Case of the Wandering Corpse

From my list on 19th century murder, mystery and mayhem.

Why am I passionate about this?

History has always been a captivating adventure for me, a stage to rekindle the echoes of times long past. My journey began amid musty archives in Hobart, where I stumbled upon a handwritten prison record about my wife's feisty ancestor, transported in the 1830s. There and then, I resolved to breathe life into the fading embers of her existence, and after extensive research, I wrote my first novel, a tapestry of historical events intertwined with the resurrection of long-forgotten souls. Since then, I've applied lessons from masters like Conan Doyle to create exciting, atmospheric stories that turn us all into time travelers on an exhilarating voyage.

David's book list on 19th century murder, mystery and mayhem

David Cairns Why did David love this book?

This is an enthralling adventure story that drags the reader across the rugged mountains, glens, and cities of 18th-century Scotland as the hero seeks to recover his stolen inheritance.

The story gallops along with vivid descriptions that transport the reader back to a time when loyalty and honour were really cherished. The character development, as David Balfour and Alan Breck risk all amongst the failed Jacobite uprising, is exceptional. This is another timeless classic that transports the reader to another age.

I love the interplay of real characters and real events with the underlying story, a technique that I use fully in my novels; it adds depth, veracity, and interest. Stevenson’s prose is also exceptional, creating images that make this a compelling and memorable adventure story.

By Robert Louis Stevenson,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Kidnapped as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12.

What is this book about?

Robert Louis Stevenson's classic, swashbuckling novel about a young boy who is forced to go to sea and who is then caught up in high drama, daring adventure and political intrigue.

Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is introduced by Louise Welsh and features black and white illustrations.

Headstrong David Balfour, orphaned at seventeen, sets out from the Scottish Lowlands to seek his fortune in Edinburgh. Betrayed by his wealthy Uncle…


Book cover of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

S.G. Slade Author Of Touch of a Witch

From my list on spellbinding novels with threads of magic woven in their core.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a British writer with a passion for the stories of history, both real and imagined. I have always been fascinated by tales and relics of the past, old ruins, ancient buildings, mythology, and the uncanny power of the natural world. All these things connect us to the ghosts of the past. So, I write historical fantasy novels based in the England I explored growing up, but brushed with the shadow of the supernatural, magic, witchcraft, and seductive illusion. I also write straight historical fiction under the name Samantha Grosser.

S.G.'s book list on spellbinding novels with threads of magic woven in their core

S.G. Slade Why did S.G. love this book?

I read this strange and riveting novel several years ago, so I have to confess that I’ve forgotten a lot of the details.

But I have remembered with absolute clarity the richness of the prose and the well-observed wit, so reminiscent of all the Victorian novels I devoured when I was young; the imaginative scope of a world in which an empire can rise or fall on the skill of her magicians, and the all-too-familiar danger of a rivalry between two powerful and ambitious men vying for supremacy.

It is delightful, moving, and an absolute pleasure from beginning to end.

By Susanna Clarke,

Why should I read it?

21 authors picked Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Two magicians shall appear in England. The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me The year is 1806. England is beleaguered by the long war with Napoleon, and centuries have passed since practical magicians faded into the nation's past. But scholars of this glorious history discover that one remains: the reclusive Mr Norrell whose displays of magic send a thrill through the country. Proceeding to London, he raises a beautiful woman from the dead and summons an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of…


Book cover of The Book Thief

Michele DeMarco Author Of Holding Onto Air: The Art and Science of Building a Resilient Spirit

From my list on transforming your mental and spiritual health.

Why am I passionate about this?

Officially, I’m an award-winning author and specialist in the fields of psychology, trauma, and spirituality. I’m also a professionally trained therapist, clinical ethicist, and researcher. Ultimately, I’m an ardent believer that the same life that brings us joy also (sometimes) brings us pain. More importantly, that every aspect of life has a role to play in making us who we are today and who we’ll be tomorrow. We don’t always have control over the events in life, but the script we live by is ours to write—and write it we must, as only we can. I’m also a three-time heart attack survivor.

Michele's book list on transforming your mental and spiritual health

Michele DeMarco Why did Michele love this book?

Markus Zusak’s book is definitely not for the faint of heart or those easily bored: its narrator is Death, and the book is over 500 pages long. Not really the kind of book you’d think of for those aged 12 and up (as it’s listed). But it is one that really ought to be universally read.

The book follows two young children battling for survival in Nazi Germany. Entropy hangs in the air like Death’s shadow. Life’s harsh realities—like evil, heartache, pain, and mortality—are ever-present. In Max's (the young boy) dreams, he is boxing with Hitler and lands a punch, knocking the Fuhrer down, but soon he’s overtaken by the crowd.

This is one of the reasons I appreciate this book: winners sometimes lose; bad things happen to good people. And yet, the response to this existential injustice isn’t to become a mere survivor, victim, or martyr. It’s to…

By Markus Zusak,

Why should I read it?

29 authors picked The Book Thief as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

'Life affirming, triumphant and tragic . . . masterfully told. . . but also a wonderful page-turner' Guardian
'Brilliant and hugely ambitious' New York Times
'Extraordinary' Telegraph
___

HERE IS A SMALL FACT - YOU ARE GOING TO DIE

1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier.
Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.

SOME IMPORTANT…


Book cover of Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores

Marianne Julia Strauss Author Of Do You Read Me? Bookstores Around The World

From my list on to give a book lover.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am writing about the good things in life, covering love, books, motorcycles, and everything in between. It was around 2010 when I started travelling for my job as a travel journalist and lived abroad for some years in France, Namibia, and Indonesia. I started to visit indie bookstores in every city I got to and made a book out of them ten years later. The best part was the precious, deep, and always inspiring conversations with the bookshop owners. This list contains their and my favourite well-tried book present recommendations for every age and occasion.

Marianne's book list on to give a book lover

Marianne Julia Strauss Why did Marianne love this book?

For any friend of yours that loves laughing or is a bookseller or wonders about the strangeness of human mankind often or has ever been in a bookstore, or all of that together, this is a perfect present. Jen Campbell is a bookseller herself and has a fine and hilarious sense of humour that is very contagious and perfectly capable to turn a rainy Saturday afternoon into some well-lived hours.

By Jen Campbell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Can books conduct electricity?'

'My children are just climbing your bookshelves: that's ok... isn't it?'

A John Cleese Twitter question ['What is your pet peeve?'], first sparked the "Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops" blog, which grew over three years into one bookseller's collection of ridiculous conversations on the shop floor. From 'Did Beatrix Potter ever write a book about dinosaurs?' to the hunt for a paperback which could forecast the next year's weather; and from 'I've forgotten my glasses, please read me the first chapter' to 'Excuse me... is this book edible?'

This full-length collection illustrated by the Brothers…


Book cover of Bibliophile

Marianne Julia Strauss Author Of Do You Read Me? Bookstores Around The World

From my list on to give a book lover.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am writing about the good things in life, covering love, books, motorcycles, and everything in between. It was around 2010 when I started travelling for my job as a travel journalist and lived abroad for some years in France, Namibia, and Indonesia. I started to visit indie bookstores in every city I got to and made a book out of them ten years later. The best part was the precious, deep, and always inspiring conversations with the bookshop owners. This list contains their and my favourite well-tried book present recommendations for every age and occasion.

Marianne's book list on to give a book lover

Marianne Julia Strauss Why did Marianne love this book?

From the workspaces of famous authors to bookish quiz questions to portraits of the most adorable bookstore cats, this one is an illustrated love letter to the universe of books. Jane Mount recommends her best reads from memoirs to fantasy, shows her favourite bookstores, and presents songs about books, books that were turned into great films and so much more, including for sure some beautiful book facts that are new to your giftee.

By Jane Mount,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Bibliophile as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Searching for perfect book lovers gifts? Rejoice! Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany, is a love letter to all things bookish. Author Jane Mount brings literary people, places, and things to life through her signature and vibrant illustrations. It's a must-have for every book collection, and makes a wonderful literary gift for book lovers, writers, and more.

Readers of Jane Mount's Bibliophile will delight in:
Touring the world's most beautiful bookstores Testing their knowledge of the written word with quizzes Finding their next great read in lovingly curated stacks of books Sampling the most famous fictional meals Peeking inside the workspaces of…


Book cover of Library Lion

Sharlee Glenn Author Of Library on Wheels: Mary Lemist Titcomb and America's First Bookmobile

From my list on libraries and librarians.

Why am I passionate about this?

As I wrote in my author's note for Library on Wheels: "Growing up as a book-loving child in rural Utah in the 1960s and '70s, I developed a strong emotional connection to the bookmobile. My father died in a mining accident when I was five, leaving my mother with seven children to raise on her own. We didn't have much money or many opportunities, but every two weeks the bookmobile brought the universe to me." As a writer of children's books, I was immediately intrigued when I ran across an obscure reference to Mary Lemist Titcomb, credited with being the inventor of the bookmobile in America--and I knew at once that I had to write about her. 

Sharlee's book list on libraries and librarians

Sharlee Glenn Why did Sharlee love this book?

My grandchildren love this story about a loveable lion who shows up one day at Miss Merriweather’s library. Though he’s careful to follow the strict library rules, the day comes when he must help everyone understand that sometimes rules are meant to be broken. Featuring captivating illustrations by Kevin Hawkes, Library Lion is a joyous marriage of image and text. 

By Michelle Knudsen, Kevin Hawkes (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Library Lion as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 4, 5, 6, and 7.

What is this book about?

A wonderful addition to any child's library, this is the multiple award-winning and bestselling picture book about what happens when a lion visits a library.

In this international and award-winning bestseller about the joys of discovering the library and making new friends, a lion visits the library for the very first time. The head librarian, Miss Merriweather, is very particular about rules in the library. But when the lion visits, she isn't sure what to do - there aren't any rules about lions in the library! As it turns out, this lion seems very well suited to library visiting. His…


Book cover of Massimo Listri. The World's Most Beautiful Libraries

Marianne Julia Strauss Author Of Do You Read Me? Bookstores Around The World

From my list on to give a book lover.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am writing about the good things in life, covering love, books, motorcycles, and everything in between. It was around 2010 when I started travelling for my job as a travel journalist and lived abroad for some years in France, Namibia, and Indonesia. I started to visit indie bookstores in every city I got to and made a book out of them ten years later. The best part was the precious, deep, and always inspiring conversations with the bookshop owners. This list contains their and my favourite well-tried book present recommendations for every age and occasion.

Marianne's book list on to give a book lover

Marianne Julia Strauss Why did Marianne love this book?

With its double book size and its weight of 7 kg, this breathtaking tome by Massimo Listri defines the ‘coffee table book’ new - in fact you could use it at coffee table itself! The photos and stories of the most amazing libraries from the 15th to the 19th century will blow you away. As pricyest book of this list it is a perfect present for a milestone birthday for a dear one who loves historical libraries (and who wouldn’t?).

By Georg Ruppelt, Elisabeth Sladek,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Massimo Listri. The World's Most Beautiful Libraries as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the mighty halls of ancient Alexandria to the coffered ceilings of the Morgan Library in New York, human beings have had a long, enraptured relationship with libraries. Like no other concept and like no other space, the collection of knowledge, learning, and imagination offers a sense of infinite possibility. It's the unrivaled realm of discovery, where every faded manuscript or mighty clothbound tome might reveal a provocative new idea, a far-flung fantasy, an ancient belief, a religious conviction, or a whole new way of being in the world.

In this new photographic journey, Massimo Listri travels to some of…


Book cover of This Is How You Lose the Time War

Ira Nayman Author Of The Dance: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction

From my list on wildly entertaining journeys around the multiverse.

Why am I passionate about this?

I, Ira Nayman, have been writing stories set in the multiverse for almost twenty years, first with the Alternate Reality News Service set of books, then with my Transdimensional Authority/Multiverse novels and, most recently, with multiverse triptychs (the spark for The Dance). One of the things that I recently realized about my writing is that a lot of it focuses on the factors that shape our lives and make us the people we are. My ongoing fascination with the multiverse is because it is a great vehicle for exploring this idea by showing us how our lives could have turned out if circumstances or our choices had been different.

Ira's book list on wildly entertaining journeys around the multiverse

Ira Nayman Why did Ira love this book?

Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood famously rocketed this book to the top of the bestseller list four years after its publication. Whatever you’ve heard about this inventive epistolary time travel romance, I promise you that it lives up to that hype. It won me over immediately with its lyrical prose, clever sci-fi conceit, and charged romantic tension between dueling protagonists.

I love dystopian fiction, but there’s something even more impressive about well-written utopian fiction. I’m even more impressed when authors remember that our various visions of utopia can be in conflict with one another and with our own individual connections and desires. Time War weaves poetry out of the multiverse and had me sobbing over two women who would rather burn down every world than lose each other.

By Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone,

Why should I read it?

14 authors picked This Is How You Lose the Time War as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF The Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novella, the Reddit Stabby Award for Best Novella AND The British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novella

SHORTLISTED FOR
2020 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award
The Ray Bradbury Prize
Kitschies Red Tentacle Award
Kitschies Inky Tentacle
Brave New Words Award

'A fireworks display from two very talented storytellers' Madeline Miller, author of Circe

Co-written by two award-winning writers, This Is How You Lose the Time War is an epic love story spanning time and space.

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It…


Book cover of The Midnight Library

Ira Nayman Author Of The Dance: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction

From my list on wildly entertaining journeys around the multiverse.

Why am I passionate about this?

I, Ira Nayman, have been writing stories set in the multiverse for almost twenty years, first with the Alternate Reality News Service set of books, then with my Transdimensional Authority/Multiverse novels and, most recently, with multiverse triptychs (the spark for The Dance). One of the things that I recently realized about my writing is that a lot of it focuses on the factors that shape our lives and make us the people we are. My ongoing fascination with the multiverse is because it is a great vehicle for exploring this idea by showing us how our lives could have turned out if circumstances or our choices had been different.

Ira's book list on wildly entertaining journeys around the multiverse

Ira Nayman Why did Ira love this book?

There is a certain kind of literature that takes my breath away. In my experience, there is nothing more exhilarating than reading a book that you think is contemporary that veers, with the reader hardly noticing, into the speculative. I adore books that take the ordinary world and sprinkle it with magic and possibilities.

With this book, Matt Haig answers a question many of us contemplate: What if? What if I’d taken the other fork in the road? This book answers that question for one flawed, beautiful character, and I was enthralled with every page.  

By Matt Haig,

Why should I read it?

34 authors picked The Midnight Library as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The #1 New York Times bestselling WORLDWIDE phenomenon

Winner of the Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction | A Good Morning America Book Club Pick | Independent (London) Ten Best Books of the Year

"A feel-good book guaranteed to lift your spirits."-The Washington Post

The dazzling reader-favorite about the choices that go into a life well lived, from the acclaimed author of How To Stop Time and The Comfort Book.

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of…


Book cover of Winter’s Tale

Lars Walker Author Of The Year of the Warrior

From my list on transcendent fantasy.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a word guy. I’ve been a radio announcer and an academic librarian. Currently I translate Norwegian film and TV production scripts into English. I’ve had an obsession with Vikings all my life and have made researching the subject my lifelong hobby. I’m also a Christian (not as paradoxical as you might think). I like authors who a) know how to use words, and b) explore the larger, more challenging moral questions with honesty and decency. Most of all, I like stories that work magic with words to make my spirit soar. I’ve written several stand-alone “urban” fantasies and am carrying on my ongoing historical fantasy series set in Norway around the first millennium.

Lars' book list on transcendent fantasy

Lars Walker Why did Lars love this book?

A wonderful book in two senses – it’s wonderfully written, and it evokes wonder. This is an idiosyncratic urban fantasy set in an imaginary metropolis called New York City (cut off from the world by an impenetrable cloud wall that lifts only occasionally, to let the trains through). In this city, amazing characters (amazingly good and amazingly evil) clash as they strive for the things that matter to them most. And the prose is as bright and vivid as a Van Gogh painting. Winter’s Tale contains one of my favorite lines in all literature, where one character is described as “breathtakingly short.”

By Mark Helprin,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Winter’s Tale as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The New York Times No. 1 bestseller.

One night in New York, a city under siege by snow, Peter Lake attempts to rob a fortress-like mansion on the Upper West Side. Though he thinks it is empty, the daughter of the house is home . . .

Thus begins the affair between this Irish burglar and Beverly Penn, a young girl dying of consumption. It is a love so powerful that Peter will be driven to stop time and bring back the dead; A New York Winter's Tale is the story of that extraordinary journey.


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in the Spanish Civil War, Francoist Spain, and Barcelona?

10,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books about the Spanish Civil War, Francoist Spain, and Barcelona.

The Spanish Civil War Explore 48 books about the Spanish Civil War
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