Carlos Ruiz Zafon · 2001 · overland

Carlos Ruiz Zafon's 2001 international bestseller, a gothic literary mystery set in the atmospheric streets of mid-twentieth-century Barcelona, from the post-war years back through the long shadow of the Spanish Civil War. A boy's obsession with a vanished author draws him into a labyrinth of love, madness and murder. The journey here is not across countries but across one haunted city; the route is a walk through its key locations.

1. 1
   Sempere and Sons

   In post-war Barcelona, young Daniel Sempere grows up among the shelves of his father's antiquarian bookshop in the old city.

2. 2
   Cemetery of Forgotten Books

   His father takes him to a hidden labyrinth of lost books, where Daniel chooses a single novel by the obscure Julian Carax that will shape his life.

3. 3
   Aldaya Mansion

   His search for Carax leads him up to the crumbling Aldaya mansion on the Avenida del Tibidabo, heavy with old secrets and a faceless man who burns every copy of Carax's books.

4. 4
   Montjuic

   The trail runs down through a city shadowed by the Civil War, to the castle and cemetery of Montjuic and the buried truth of Carax's fate.