El laberinto de los espíritus (literally, The Labyrinth of the Spirits) is the fourth book in the saga of The Cemetery of Forgotten Books by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. This saga started in 2001 with The Shadow of the Wind, followed by The Angel’s Game and The Prisoner of Heaven. All three books take place in Barcelona, in the aftermath of the Civil War. If you are not familiar with them, I recommend you get your hands on a copy of The Shadow of the Wind […]
We Are Family, I Got All My Sisters With Me
I love Nadiya Hussain. If you are a fan of The Great British Bake Off, you probably love her too. Nadiya was the winner in 2015, and she is, by all accounts the most popular winner in the history of the show. Charming, warm, funny, self-deprecating and gifted with a marvelously expressive face, she made all of us fall in love with her. Since winning TGBBO, Nadiya has published a cookbook (which I received as a surprise present last week from a lovely friend who […]
A telenovela by any other name smells like a telenovela
At the end of 2016 I realized, to my horror, that I hadn’t read a single book in Spanish, so one of my main reading goals for this year is to read more books in Spanish, preferably by women. And they can’t be translations, that would be cheating, the goal is to read more Hispanophone writers. Enter Contigo en la distancia, by Chilean writer Carla Guelfenbein. This novel won one of the most famous literary prizes in the Spanish-speaking world, the Premio Alfaguara. And I […]





