“Every book has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.”

This quote is from another one of my favorite books, The Shadow of the Wind. The book is, in large part, about books themselves and the power they have on everyone they touch. Written by the Spanish novelist Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind is set in Barcelona after the Spanish Civil War, and follows the story of a young boy. The boy, Daniel, stumbles upon a book called The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax and falls in love with it, but when he goes to find more copies of Carax’s work, he learns that someone has been systematically destroying every last copy of Julian Carax’s novels, and he may have one of the last novels left 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 before long he realizes that if he doesn’t find out the truth about Julian Carax, he and those closest to him will suffer horribly.”

Obviously, this book has a lot going on in it. I’ve read it twice now and I still think I need to read it another time or two before I can actually fully grasp everything that is going on in the novel. The Shadow of the Wind is also written as a story within a story – and sometimes, it can get a little bit difficult to actually keep all the information you’re reading straight and in the correct storyline. Nevertheless, the stories are woven together so creatively and unexpectedly that you’re CONSTANTLY guessing at what will happen next. In a time where most stories are just made up of different cliches, Zafón manages to take all the cliches in the book (doomed love, murderous revenge, gruesome deaths, femme fatales, etc.) but utilizes them all in surprisingly fresh and unique ways. As someone who often does not read mystery novels, I found The Shadow of the Wind difficult to put down both times that I read it.

I think that my favorite element of the novel is the quality of the writing. Zafón is an immensely talented author, and almost every single line he writes is filled with poetic metaphors and imagery. He has a masterful control over language that makes the reader feel every emotion he conveys in his writing. And I think, to that point, it makes sense that the language in the novel would be so beautiful, as the book itself is Zafón paying homage to all books and the power they hold on anyone fortunate enough to have them.

I have yet to read any of Zafón’s other works, although The Shadow of the Wind is considered by many to be his best. If you have time and happen to like mystery novels (or even if you don’t), I strongly suggest checking it out.

So far, for my passion blog, I’ve shared stories about places I’ve been able to travel to over the years. Traveling, as I’ve said countless times before, is one of my absolute favorite things to do. However, for when I can’t be lucky enough to explore the world around me, I often instead explore the world of books.

Reading has been one of my lifelong passions, and for this blog, I will be writing about some of my favorite books and how they affected me. I wholeheartedly believe that books have the ability to make us think differently, and view the world around us differently. By sharing some of my favorite novels, I will be paying tribute to the stories that have shaped me into the person I am today.

To begin this blog, I’m going to talk about one of the very first books I read that truly made me passionate about reading: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

Although published in 1813, it is, to this day, one of the most beloved novels in the English language, and for good reason. It provides a humorous outlook on societal life and standards of 19th century England, features complex, flawed, well-developed characters, and tells a good love story, to boot. Perhaps my favorite aspect of the novel, however, was that it showed a complex, clever woman at the center of the story in a time where women in novels did little else but cry and faint.

I first read Pride and Prejudice when I was nine years old. Desperate to be exactly like my fifteen-year-old sister, I devoured any book she claimed was worth reading. I read, all day and night, for four days straight. Of course, I hardly understood a word of it, and had a dictionary by my side, which I turned to nearly every other line. Once I actually understood the plot and the characters, I fell in love with it. I wanted to be exactly like the protagonist, Elizabeth Bennet, when I grew up. In fact, to this day, I think there are very few female protagonists in novels that are as well-written as Jane Austen’s characters. For that fact alone, I will always love Austen and her novels. She did something no woman was expected to do, and created characters that have shown women for over two centuries that we can be far more than side characters who cry and faint in the background. It also features one of the best love stories ever told – even though it is about far more than who marries who. I think one of the greatest strengths of the novel is not simply the “falling in love” part, but the growth of the characters – Elizabeth Bennet and the infamous Mr. Darcy – who can actually love each other. The novel has a way of stealthily maturing the characters without the reader even realizing it, which perhaps just makes them more human and more realistic.

For these reasons, among many others, I love this novel. I think there’s always going to be a special place in people’s hearts for the books that made people fall in love with stories. I’ve reread this book at least twice each year since I was nine years old, and even though I can practically recite each line by heart now, there’s always a bit of magic that flows like a current from the book each and every time I pick it up.