The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

What a fun read that was going to be a five star book until the expedient and simplistic denouement. I admit having seen the film first, with an amazing performance by Johnny Depp (and directed by the pedophile rapist Roman Polanski) but as always, the book exceeded the film in almost every aspect.

While reading, I wrote that this was ‘a book that makes me proud to have an education’ and ‘a book that makes me mourn the advent of the eBook’. To touch a real book, smell it and feel its contours in my hands, what glory! I wonder what will become of book collectors in the age of Kindles, iBooks and such things? I loved the insider knowledge the book deals in, from the linguistic to the analytical. I highlighted “But we all share a conspiratorial wink when we talk about certain magical authors and books. Those that made us discover literature without weighing us down with dogmas and teaching us rules.”