I’ve just started reading The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon and his novel features the ‘Cemetery of Forgotten Books’ – here’s how the father describes the place to his son:
“Every book, every volume you see here, 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 […] When a library disappears, or a bookshop closes down, when a book is consigned to oblivion, those of us who know this place, its guardians, make sure that it gets here. In this place, books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever, waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader’s hands. In the shop, we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner. Every book you see here has been somebody’s best friend.”
