Orwell is a man of strong convictions. He believes so passionately in the fight against fascism that in 1936 he travels to Barcelona to fight in the revolution. Homage to Catalonia is a detailed account of the politics surrounding the revolution, a fervent defense of the working class and a witness of war from the trenches. “All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.” I will be honest and say that the politics interested me […]
Just because you can write a 1000 page book doesn’t mean you have to…
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 […]
The Angel’s Game: Barcelona as You’ve Never Imagined
It was a dark and stormy night… As funny as it might seem to echo the opening sentence of Snoopy’s novel in the Peanuts cartoons, it’s an apt description of the atmosphere and ambience of Carlos Ruiz Záfon’s second novel in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, The Angel’s Game. For anyone who has ever spent time in Barcelona and remembers it as being a sunny, youthful and vibrant place, Záfon imbues his Barcelona of the 1930s as a dolorous, dark and mysterious city full of […]