Today whilst out and about got...
A Wild Ride through Night - Walter Moers *Anyone familiar with German Moers's fantastic series of deeply satirical books based on the imaginary world of Zamonia (including the 13 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear) will be interested in this story based on twenty one beautifully reproduced wood-cuts of the Great 19th Century French illustrator Gustave Dore. Blurb: In the wake of the breakout successes of Walter Mores's The 13 ½ Lives of Captain Bluebear, Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures, and The City of Dreaming Books, Moers is back with this fourth book, the tumultuous tale of a little boy and his encounter with Death. Moers bases his utterly delightful story on twenty-one woodcuts by the inimitable Gustave Doré, the most successful illustrator of the nineteenth century.In a world between legend and dream, A Wild Ride through the Night describes the exhilarating and comic adventures of his twelve-year-old protagonist Gustave, a boy who aspires one day to be a great artist. When a disaster at sea puts Gustave in the uncompromising hands of Death, he has the choice to give up the ghost or take on a series of six impossible tasks. Gustave embarks on a strange and perilous journey during which he must save a princess from an angry dragon, pull a tooth from the Most Monstrous of All Monsters, fly over the moon, and even, somehow, meet his own self. Will Gustave's creativity and imagination be able to save him from his fate?
The Prisoner of Heaven - Carols Ruiz Zafon *Anyone who has read Spanish Zafon's fantastically well plotted story Shadow of the Wind featuring amongst other things the very cool 'Cemetery of Forgotten Books' and the most successful Spanish novel of ALL time behind Cervantes' Don Quixote, will be happy to see this third installment arrive in English translation. Blurb: Barcelona 1957. In the cold winter days before Christmas few people are visiting the Sempere & Sons bookshop. Business is slow, but Daniel Sempere has married the love of his life, and Fermin Romero de Torres is preparing for his own wedding. Fate, it seems, might finally be smiling on them. Then a mysterious stranger arrives and buys the most precious book in the shop, a rare copy of Dumas' Count of Monte Christo. He inscribes it to Fermin with a sinister message before dissapearing into the shadowy streets veiled in mist. Limping and deformed, he is the keeper of a terrible secret that has been buried in the dark memory of the city for decades. The stranger will lead Daniel deep into the enigma at the heart of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.
Dublinesque - Enrique Vila-mitas *Another leading Spanish author in fact Vila-matas is generally acknowledged to be amongst Spain's great contemporary novelists alongside Javier Marias (I own Bartelby & Co and Never Any End To Paris both superb works) Blurb: Samuel Riba is about to turn 60. A successful publisher in Barcelona, he has published many of his generation's most important authors. But he is increasingly prone to attacks of anxiety - about the digital revolution and its threat to books and 'high culture', and about the fact that he has yet to discover in the younger generation a writer of 'genius'. One night he has a vivid dream that takes place in Dublin, a city he has never visited. In the dream a funeral is being held for the printing press, at the same time as a homage to James Joyce's Ulysses. At the graveside hovers a mysterious figure in a mackintosh. Who is this? James Joyce, his protégé Samuel Beckett, or the elusive great writer that Riba so longs to find? Gathering together a group of friends, Riba decides to travel to Dublin for Bloomsday to hold his very own funeral for the book. In the process of marking a death, he makes some illuminating discoveries about life.