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The Book of Air and Shadows: A Novel | 
| Author: Michael Gruber
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $0.99
You Save: $13.96 (93%)
New (48) Used (58) Collectible (1) from $0.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  93 reviews
Sales Rank: 89045
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 496
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 0061456578
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780061456572
ASIN: 0061456578
Publication Date: March 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: READ A FEW TIMES, COUPLE DINGS ON CORNERS
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Product Description
A fire destroys a New York City rare bookstore—and reveals clues to a treasure worth killing for. . . . A disgraced scholar is found tortured to death. . . . And those pursuing the most valuable literary find in history are about to cross from the harmless mundane into inescapable nightmare. From the acclaimed, bestselling author of Tropic of Night comes a breathtaking thriller that twists, shocks, and surprises at every turn as it crisscrosses centuries, from the glaring violence of today into the dark shadows of truth and lies surrounding the greatest writer the world has ever known.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 88 more reviews...
 Literary thriller trumps Da Vinci Code September 18, 2008
Literary thriller of the type popular since The Da Vinci Code (and much better done, by the way, than that oversold, underwritten mediocrity), Gruber posits a newly-discovered letter by a contemporary of William Shakespeare that refers to ciphered letters detailing spying on Shakespeare's life and a potentially extant manuscript of a previously-unknown play.
Of course, there are questions about the verity of the letter (a Shakespeare scholar previously duped by a similar fraud plays a prominent role), the existence and verity of the ciphered spy letters, and most of all the play manuscript. Gruber maintains this tension nearly to the last page of the book, not an easy feat when weaving together the different threads of the story while keeping the reader interested and the story hurdling forward.
The book includes its share of cliches including simpering literary homosexuals, fast-living wealthy New Yorkers, and Russian gangsters, but to Gruber's credit he plays the story for laughs when it needs it and makes the stereotypes plausible.
 Complex and engaging September 6, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I've noticed a wide variety of opinions posted about this book so I felt compelled to weigh in. I found it to be an engrossing tale that weaves together the stories of characters from Elizabethan England and contemporary New York with a terrific command of narrative and suspense.
I very much appreciated the author's ability to evoke the very different atmospheres of these very different places while introducing a wide array of characters and subplots. It's the sort of book that you can get lost in, almost like a good Victorian novel with many interconnected layers. I see that several people have likened the book to The DaVinci Code, but I actually found it more similar to A.S. Byatt's "Possession," with which it shares a literary focus (e.g., Shakespeare) and also a back-and-forth structure between Elizabethan and contemporary stories.
I definitely recommend the book for anyone who enjoys Byatt or historical mysteries.
 Save your money and time August 10, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Page 93. That's as far as I was willing to waste any more time waiting for this book to get to be worth reading.
 Engaging but not one for the ages August 1, 2008
If you like the DaVinci Code / Angels and Demons type of book this one will be for you - it is certainly better written than either of those, features more complete characters, and the mystery at its center is very enjoyable. But some of the characters are overly detailed but not really persons, while other very tangential characters are given more personhood than they warrant - "why am I learning so much about these people if this is all they are doing in the story?" The book also suffers something I have noted and learned to suffer in many of the Dan Brown / John Grisham series, being the omnipresent, omnipowerful villain class that suddently is not so capable and gets beaten. I am not a writer and can understand the problem of overcoming such a powerful antagonist in the story, but it can be disappointing all the same when you get to the end and the resolution is so simple. Not negative on this book at all, and I would certainly read others by Mr. Gruber, but it is not the world changer some have indicated.
The Book of Boredom and Dread July 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
What a waste of money and time! I did finish the book but it was torturous. I dreaded reading it but made myself complete it. Never again will I do that! I found the characters to be unbelievable and irritating. This book put me to sleep many times. My advice to anyone thinking of buying this book is a resounding NO! If you still aren't quite sure, at least go the library, check it out and save your money!
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