Embers by Sándor Márai

"As darkness settles on a forgotten castle at the foot of the Carpathian mountains, two men sit down to a final dinner. They have not seen one another in forty-one years. At their last meeting, in the company of a beautiful woman, an unspoken act of betrayal left all three lives shattered – and each of them alone. Tonight, as wine stirs the blood, it is time to talk of old passions and that last, fateful meeting."


The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

"Late one night, exploring her father's library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters addressed ominously to 'My dear and unfortunate successor'. Her discovery plunges her into a world she never dreamed of - a labyrinth where the secrets of her father's past ad her mother's mysterious fate connect to an evil hidden in the depths of history."


Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2002)

"After a tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue pacific. The crew of the surviving vessel consists of a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan, a 450-pounds Royal Bengal tiger and Pi – a 16 years old Indian boy."

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

"Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the “cemetery of Forgotten books”, a labyrinth of obscure and forgotten titles. To this library, a man brings his ten-years-old son Daniel, one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book and from the dusty shelves pulls The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax. But as Daniel grows up, several people seem to inordinately interested in his find. What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life and death of Julian Carax and to save those he left behind."