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Showing posts from July, 2014

The Shadow of the Wind

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“The Shadow of the Wind” is a novel by a Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafon. The original version was written in Spanish. This book was published in 2001, and has been translated into more than forty languages, has been published in more than fifty countries and has sold over 12 million copies worldwide (by the author's website). I read the English version of this book. In 1945, in Barcelona under the Franco regime remaining wounds of the Spanish Civil War, a ten-year-old Daniel Sempere was taken to the secret Cemetery of Forgotten Books by his father. At the place Daniel was interested in a book, “The Shadow of the Wind”, and the author Julian Carax. He read soon the book and was impressed strongly. Daniel meets Clara who is blind and twenty-one-year-old beautiful woman and know the works of Julian very much, takes a romantic interest in her. One evening, he meets a faceless man, Lain Courbert, in the dark who is a devil in “The Shadow of the Wind”. The strange man asks Danie

Eva Cassidy

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As I was listening to songs of Emi Fujita on YouTube, I got to Eva Cassidy. Eva Cassidy is hardly known in Japan. Almost all CDs of her songs that we can get in Japan are imported. I also haven't known her songs and even her name. But her beautiful voice and her amazing musical sense can always capture many listeners. Eva Cassidy was born in Washington D.C in 1963, and grew up in Maryland. She was interested in art and music from her childhood. When she was nine, her father began teaching her to play the guitar. She first joined a local music band as a singer at eleven. In 1992, when she was 29 years old, her first album that was a duet album was released. Her name, however, had been known only in Washington D.C area. In 1994, her skin cancer was found. In 1996, Eva Cassidy passed away. She was only 33 years old. In 2000, BBC broadcasted her song 'Over the Rainbow ', and the song created a sensation from Europe and all over the world. She became a legend of the t