The City of Mist Stories by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

​   Carloz Ruiz Zafon has recently passed away, departing for his very own Cemetery of Forgotten Books, leaving behind a mesmerizing fictional world of his own invention.
    The mythical Barcelona of Zafon’s imagination, a gothic city of tall cathedrals and dark alleys, of mysterious bookstores and mysterious authors, has been brought to life with stunning detail over four interconnected books, beginning with The Shadow of The Wind and concluding with the behemoth Labyrinth of Spirits. (There are also a YA series potentially connected somehow, but having never read them, I can’t say for sure).
     I’ve read, listened to and adored those books. Sure, the more I mature as a reader and as a person, the more I notice that they aren’t perfect books, the goth lean is strong within them, they can be overwritten and overwrought, but…but…they are still so very lovely. Books written for book lovers.
     Barcelona is a character in and of itself within those books, a gorgeous, mysterious character, seemingly permanently shrouded in mist. So much so that it merits the title of this collection perfectly.
     These are the stories the author prepared for posthumous publication and majority of them are from the same world, tangentially or directly connected with the main stories and characters. Some are backstories elaborated, some are myths. One of them imagines the existence of the third volume of Don Quixote and circumstances of it. All of them, all of these stories will take you back to Barcelona, take you traveling through time, take you far and away to the magical city of the mist.
      Don’t know how much someone who’s never read the author and isn’t familiar with his writing and the Cemetery of The Forgotten Books series, will get out of this, but for the fans and completists this is a must. It’s a slim and dreamy volume that goes by very much like a short dream. It’s poignant, melancholic, and very lovely. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.