The Club Dumas in Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

May 28, 2012 Katherine rated it really liked it

Shelves: book-mysteries

I was expecting a book mystery at its best and this is exactly what I got. I was much more inclined to read this after reading The Shadow of the Wind, as that book really reminded me how much I love book mystery novels!

This is set in Europe (Spain, Portugal and France) in more contemporary times where Corso, a book detective, has been contracted by a wealthy man named Borja to figure out if his book "The Book of the Nine Doors of the Kingdom of Shadows" a rare book that is meant to call the devi ...more

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Jul 09, 2013 Arianna rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library-book, burritt, ccsu

www.shelfnotes.com

Dear Reader,
This is definitely one of those books that only true bibliophiles will love. I couldn’t get into it myself much for the first section, even though it talked all about rare books and those who love them. I felt like, honestly, the story didn’t really pick up until like the last third of the novel, but you really did have to go through all of the earlier stuff in order to get anything out of the later happenings. You just wish you had known that at the time you had to www.shelfnotes.com

Dear Reader,
This is definitely one of those books that only true bibliophiles will love. I couldn’t get into it myself much for the first section, even though it talked all about rare books and those who love them. I felt like, honestly, the story didn’t really pick up until like the last third of the novel, but you really did have to go through all of the earlier stuff in order to get anything out of the later happenings. You just wish you had known that at the time you had to slog through some of the early material….

However, I did, all-in-all, like the book and how it circled around a lost-to-history book which examined the nature of the devil and centered around nine engravings. I also really loved the Dumas connection, although I’d highly recommend to anyone who was planning to read this book that they ought to read or re-read at least The Three Musketeers (if not others of Dumas’ work, as well) before diving into this adventure, because SO much of the action and content revolves around at least the 3Ms. I am certain I missed many of the references and allusions to Dumas works, as I read the Musketeers when I was something like 14, and even The Count of Monte Cristo (a true favorite of mine) was several years ago, and while easier for me to remember, still only a more distant memory.

The main character was not terribly likable either, although I’m certain that’s what the author meant to do there. And his relationship that developed mid-book did not seem all that believable, but hey - generally the people who fall in love with each other are just as surprised as the outsiders are. So it wasn’t that the story wasn’t believable that bothered me, but something felt slightly off the whole time...although, I suppose that was largely because the entire book was very “meta”, with the protagonist recognizing how things would go were he the main character in a novel. That was probably my favorite part: his omniscient understanding of his role and his place in the story as a character, written in by another. The author did great with that little bit.

Overall, an enjoyable book for a book-lover, that is for sure. I definitely enjoyed the ride, especially when things actually started moving. But, looking back on the book as a whole, I do understand how it all fell together now, and needed to be presented how it was.

Best,
Arianna ...more

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Oct 17, 2020 Deodand rated it liked it

Shelves: europe, fiction

This book occasionally dives a bit far into its own ass for my liking. There's a lot of "conversations" between two of the world's biggest lovers of antique books about the nuts n bolts of the business. Sometimes I was wishing for them to get on with it.

The movie The Ninth Gate is a very close adaptation of the text so there won't be many surprises for you if you've seen it. I still enjoyed the book. ...more

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Mar 24, 2008 Kristen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: thriller

Long before the Davinci Code, the book the Club Dumas was written. Frankly I liked it better than DiVinci code and it was recently unearthed among books I own. Worth a second read...

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