Novel approach

Where to start? | Suggest a pairing

Shadow of the wind + The eyes

Shadow Of The Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Obsessions with novels, libraries, lovers, sidelong glances and a shadowy masked man in the streets of Barcelona – this book is full of haunting, evocative images and a labyrinth of plot.

Down the windswept galleries
And bare arcades of the soul,
The shadows of the days
Slide like gunsmoke…

Antonio Machado, The Eyes

The sustenance of books and the repeated glimpses of unknown eyes bring a haunting sense of order to this collection. It's tempting to think of Antonio Machado's own life – widowed young, a schoolteacher of French and Spanish, a fervent Republican finally dying after his escape from Franco's Spain – while reading these poems. And yet, though they conjure a lucid, bare life and a clear vision, the collection is not a straight biography, nor a straight translation. For those who like a sense of mystery.

The Eyes by Antonio Machado, translated by Don Paterson

Or try… Translations of Edwin Morgan; Thomas Transtromer translated by Robin Robertson; George Szirtes

 High Fidelity | Zoom!
 The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency | The Good Neighbour
 The Family Way | Newborn
 The Algebraist | Spirit Machines
 The God Of Small Things | Postcards From God
 The Night Watch | The Book Of Blood
 Fleshmarket Close | Dead Redhead
 Bridget Jones's Diary | Leaving And Leaving You
 Quite Ugly One Morning | Bad Shaman Blues
 The Shipping News | The Tree House
 Shadow Of The Wind | The Eyes
 Back When We Were Grownups | Granny Scarecrow