I don’t see any link to a text excerpt on the Amazon page.
You should be able to use the Look Inside feature to read the beginning of the book.
Wait, there isn’t one!
I had been floundering lately on what to read next. After reading the opening paragraphs of this, I might actually set this as my next read.
I STILL REMEMBER THE DAY MY FATHER TOOK ME TO THE CEMETERY OF Forgotten Books for the first time. It was the early summer of 1945, and we walked through the streets of a Barcelona trapped beneath ashen skies as dawn poured over Rambla de Santa Mónica in a wreath of liquid copper.
“Daniel, you mustn’t tell anyone what you’re about to see today,” my father warned. “Not even your friend Tomás. No one.”
“Not even Mommy?”
My father sighed, hiding behind the sad smile that followed him like a shadow through life. “Of course you can tell her,” he answered, heavyhearted. “We keep no secrets from her. You can tell her everything.”
Shortly after the Civil War, an outbreak of cholera had taken my mother away. We buried her in Montjuïc on my fourth birthday.
It’s one of the better books I’ve read in my lifetime, though there’s always individual taste to consider. It was one of those books for me that reinforced just how magical and unique a truly special book can be.
It’s a great book, really. I just read a paragraph that begins with this:
Se alejó en la tiniebla, portando su cubo y arrastrando su sombra como un velo nupcial.
She departed in the darkness, carrying her lantern and trailing her shadow behind like a bridal veil.
Editer
2010
That happens to me about once a month with this topic. :)
But I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who takes the time to post here. I’m currently reading the Murderbot novel and can’t put it down – enjoying it even more than the excellent novellas – and I might not have discovered it without this topic.
I read this years ago and really liked it. On sale now at Amazon. True survival story about a guy lost at sea.
AmazonSmile: Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea eBook: Callahan, Steven: Kindle Store
A true classic from Isaac Asimov is on sale for $2,
The first of the Robot novels, Caves Of Steel can be found here at Amazon or most likey and other ebook distributor.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004JHYRAO?_bbid=17786396&tag=bookbubemail1-20
Alan Dean Foster’s The Damned Trilogy is on sale today, $2.99 for all three books. I’ve read a lot of his work over the years but these got by me so I’m going to give them a look.
AmazonSmile: The Damned Trilogy: A Call to Arms, The False Mirror, and The Spoils of War eBook: Foster, Alan Dean: Kindle Store
I read them back in the mid-90s. Call to Arms is an idea book. It doesn’t have an strong plot or characters, but the idea itself is to explore the possibility of humans being found by the Galactic community at war, and discovering them to be the most destructive species ever encountered, the best species at fighting. And then the next two books are an action adventure. I remember back then enjoying the action adventure story with the characters and the exciting story better, but over the passage of time, I’ve forgotten all that, but I remember the ideas from the first book.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Kindle version today at $2.99. Considered a classic of the genre.
The Milagro Beanfield War
$1.99 today. Also a classic, and one of my favorite novels. And a fun movie, as well.
Re-read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress about 6 months ago. Was thinking a lot about how close the US is to the revolution pre-conditions Heinlein laid out for the Lunatics…
Interesting you should say that. My wife and I are rewatching Babylon 5, and it is damned scary how much of that should first into current events of the past few years.
Maybe if we had a sentient computer that controlled everything and was seemingly okay with harming other people? What could go wrong I wonder?
For that, read John Varley’s Steel Beach
I thought that this is a pretty good deal for this type of book: $4.99 each
Glantz’s Barbarossa Derailed Trilogy
John le Carré’s The Honourable Schoolboy is $2 today. It’s the sequel to Tinker, Tailor, sandwiched in between that and Smiley’s People, and not nearly as famous as either of those two titles. Which is odd, because it is the most conventional ‘spy novel’ of the three. It picks up immediately after the events of Tinker, Tailor. Retired spy George Smiley has been called back into service and put in charge of the Circus, tasked with cleaning up the mess he uncovered and — if possible — trying to restore credibility with the American Cousins. He and Peter Guillam lead a rag-tag team of Circus has-beens, trying — with no active agent networks of any kind — to gin up some intelligence leads in hopes of pulling off a major coup. Of course, being George Smiley, his approach is genius, and what follows is an intelligence operation carried out in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, against the backdrop of the American pullout from Vietnam and the accompanying bitter fallout.
It’s a great book, a kind of slow-motion train wreck, as are a number of le Carré’s better spy tales.
Also, Zafón’s The Prisoner of Heaven is $2. Its book three in the series that begins with The Shadow of the Wind, discussed above. It has been some time since I read it, so I can’t recall how dependent it is on having read the second book.
https://www.amazon.com/Prisoner-Heaven-Novel-Cemetery-Forgotten-ebook/dp/B0070XFNDE
Appreciate the tips on the John le Carre novels!
