Stuart Kells is an author and expert on antiquarian books. His books include Rare, a biography of Kay Craddock, Penguin and the Lane Brothers: The Untold Story of a Publishing Revolution, and The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders.At the Guardian Kells tagged ten top libraries in fiction, including:
The Cemetery of Lost Books in The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz ZafónRead about another entry on the list.
In Zafón’s baroque novel, Daniel Sempere hides a volume in this secret collection, itself hidden in the heart of old Barcelona. Zafón took inspiration from galleries of mirrors; stories within stories; the multi-level bookshop of Francis Edwards in Hay-on-Wye; the multi-room London bookshop of Wilfrid Voynich, said to have been organised in a deliberate sequence of crammed spaces so as to enhance the sense of drama and discovery; Eco’s abbey library; and the dépôts littéraires of revolutionary France, in which looted books were amassed on a brutal scale.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón is among McKenzie Jean-Philippe's ten best Spanish-language authors.
--Marshal Zeringue
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