Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

For those of you who will see the book in the shop and read on the cover about the 9/11 motif I advise to not put it back, to not think about another trick to make you buy the book or sell more using the well-known topic but to look inside, then read a bit, then love it.

The first smile brightened my face when I saw a number of pictures, photos and multi-coloured words in the book. We are all a bit like Alice sometimes seeing no use in books without pictures and dialogues. At the same time, the book is mature, the book is moving, the book is hilarious, the book is heartbreaking, the book is true. It is a real rabbit hole expecting those who yearn for proper fiction and a sleepless night under a lampshade with the city sleeping behind your window.
Although Foer touches a number of topics including the terrorist attack on 11 September, 2001, the bombing of Dresden in World War II and atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; although you feel a tragedy behind every character in the novel, my woman’s heart pounding was solely about Oskar Shell, the protagonist of the book, to not be washed away by that adult world he entered so early in search of the truth about his absolutely worshiped father´s death.
This is a book about an adorable boy, earnest and sweet, confused and determined. I read it laughing, I read it crying with a lump in my throat. Oskar is just no different from so many other kids on my way who long to be understood, who are out there for some explanations.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

This is one of those cases when the book makes its long journey to finally make you grab it and hardly put it down till the last page is read and no continuation is found or ever known to exist. The first time I heard about this book was during my stay in beautiful Barcelona (the events of the book take place in the same very city – coincidence №1). I was sitting on the bench reading the Russian translation of Paulo Coelho’s “The Zahir”. A woman sat down next to me, opened her book and started reading as well. Out of sheer curiosity that always pushes me to peep at what people are reading in the underground or airports I looked at her book and saw she was reading just the same book but in Spanish (coincidence №2). We talked like those twins in Indian movies that had been separated long time before and only found each other years later with the help of the identical mole somewhere on the right hip. The woman’s name was Maria. It was one of those meetings so unforgettable and sweet when there was no necessity to get in contact ever again not to break the spell. That was the moment I first heard about “La Sombra del Viento”. Maria carefully wrote the name of the book on a strangely formed piece of paper and I carefully lost it somewhere between Zurich and Cologne. In 2 months or so a friend of mine told me he had bought a very interesting book and it made him stay sleepless. I am not sure that there was any necessity to ask him the name of the book. Surely it was “The Shadow of the Wind” (coincidence №3). How many more coincidences did I need? Zero. I dived into it. I ate it. I drank it. I definitely took joy in it.

Although I speak some Spanish and even borrowed the original version from the library, my impatience won and I read it in English only because it was faster (the translation was so good and the language so rich that for the first time in my life I looked up the name of the translator and wondered if the person was bilingual).
The main character of the book is Daniel Sempere. After being taken by his father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and allowed to pick up only one book from the shelf, he chose “The Shadow of the Wind” by Julián Carax. Since that moment his adventures would start. He would learn to distinguish between real and false, he would lose and find more often quite not the same that had been lost, he would meet new friends, he would find love, he would learn compassion, he would become adult and mature. While reading you will quite definitely find yourself covered with cold sweat getting quite suspicious about every squeak of every door in the house. This is a book about books, it gives you that strange feeling like watching a film where somebody is watching a film, although in this case the strangeness is likely to appear as an advantage.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Christopher Boone being my favourite literary character makes me reread this marvelous book again and again, giving it as a present to dear people, bringing it as a little treasure to my students and after long discussions enjoying the prime-numbered chapters sympathizing with fifteen-year-old boy who suffers from a mild form of autism, admiring his mathematical abilities and seeing him stand the test of the “normal” world full of noise, lies, strange emotions, puzzling idioms and undesired physical contact.

Advised by his teacher to start writing a story and inspired by Sherlock Holmes adventures, Christopher begins his own investigation into the murder of the neighbour dog describing it in his own description-missing way. This brings about unexpected consequences and reveals naïve bravery of a little boy who makes us think hard about the relevance of our own normality.

If I only had one word to define the book I would say “incredible”. If there was only one word to describe my feelings for Christopher the word would be “tenderness”.

Together with the Curious Incident some films revealing the topic of autism came into my life making the people around me wonder - if the reason of such great interest was my knowing someone who suffers from a similar disease or my own abnormality… Anyways, the films are good and mostly known: “The Rain Man”, “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?” and “Snow Pie”. Enjoy…