The Cemetery of Forgotten Books Books in Order

The Cemetery of Forgotten Books by Carlos Ruiz Zafón is a cycle of four interconnected novels set in Barcelona — from the haunted Gothic Quarter of the 1940s Franco era through the turbulent decades that followed — unified by a magical labyrinthine library called the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, where every book ever written finds refuge, and by the Sempere family, booksellers across generations who are drawn repeatedly into the library's mysteries.

Zafón is a literary phenomenon: a Spanish writer who became one of the most widely read authors in the world, with The Shadow of the Wind — the series' first and most celebrated volume — translated into more than fifty languages and selling tens of millions of copies globally. His Barcelona is Gothic and atmospheric, a city of shadows, secrets, and the dangerous power of stories.

The cycle's four novels are interconnected but can be approached in different ways — The Shadow of the Wind works perfectly as a standalone while the full cycle rewards sequential reading with accumulating resonance. Zafón's prose (in Lucia Graves' English translation) achieves a lushness rare in translated fiction.

Begin with The Shadow of the Wind — one of the great literary novels of the twenty-first century and an essential book for anyone who loves books about books. Essential reading, full stop.