The New York Times bestseller “The Shadow of the Wind is ultimately a love letter to literature, intended for readers as passionate about storytelling as its young hero.” —Entertainment Weekly (Editor's Choice) “One gorgeous read.” —Stephen King Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer’s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author’s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Soon Daniel’s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.

Excerpt from On Some Antiquities in the Neighbourhood of Dunecht House Aberdeenshire It was known to the archaeologist that there were ogam inscriptions in the district, two Of them being among the most important in Caledonia; and that within an easy motor drive there was a minuscule inscription of six lines Of which no satisfactory explanation had been given. This inscription they had visited in a previous year. Further, the quick eye Of the hostess of Dunecht had caught sight of some curious sculptures on a stone by the road-side on the way to the minus cule inscription; and other like stones in the neighbourhood had been shewn in Stuart's two volumes of Sculptural Stones of Scotland. The suggestion was then made that for the sake of visitors at Dunecht a sort Of guide book should be prepared, giving some simple description of the several Objects and their meaning and uses. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Winner of the International Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction Animal tracks, word magic, the speech of stones, the power of letters, and the taste of the wind all figure prominently in this intellectual tour de force that returns us to our senses and to the sensuous terrain that sustains us. This major work of ecological philosophy startles the senses out of habitual ways of perception. For a thousand generations, human beings viewed themselves as part of the wider community of nature, and they carried on active relationships not only with other people with other animals, plants, and natural objects (including mountains, rivers, winds, and weather patters) that we have only lately come to think of as "inanimate." How, then, did humans come to sever their ancient reciprocity with the natural world? What will it take for us to recover a sustaining relation with the breathing earth? In The Spell of the Sensuous David Abram draws on sources as diverse as the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, Balinese shamanism, Apache storytelling, and his own experience as an accomplished sleight-of-hand of magician to reveal the subtle dependence of human cognition on the natural environment. He explores the character of perception and excavates the sensual foundations of language, which--even at its most abstract--echoes the calls and cries of the earth. On every page of this lyrical work, Abram weaves his arguments with a passion, a precision, and an intellectual daring that recall such writers as Loren Eisleley, Annie Dillard, and Barry Lopez.

Montenero Val Cocchiara is usually referred to simply as Montenero, or Mundunur in the local dialect. Montenero is a typical mountain village on the border of the Abruzzo and Molise regions, but it is more than that. Its history was tinted by contacts with numerous powerful groups over many centuries. The village and its people prove to be unique, but they also are highly embued with elements common to all in South Italy. Of course it is the hope of the author that anyone with roots in South Italy will benefit from reading this book. However, his much greater aspiration is that others will equally enjoy the story of Montenero as a metaphor of their own ancestral village or town, regardless of country or even see the village as a microcosm of the world where the forces of history and culture forge the character of people.