Stephen Burgen

PLANETA
Tras siglos de guerras, los europeos intentamos llevarnos bien, pero no dejamos de pisarnos los pies. Si pisamos el pie de un inglés, éste exclamará ¡Bloody hell! (maldito infierno), un italiano, ¡cazzo! (polla). Y un español, ¡hostia! Y mientras un alemán gritará Scheisse (mierda). Un portugués dirá puta que pariu (¡la puta que te parió)…

Somos como hablamos, especialmente cuando lo hacemos llevados por la ira.

¿Una moneda única? Posiblemente. ¿Un idioma común? ¡Ni soñarlo!… (lisätietoja)

Today a bearded stranger gave me this book for free on the subway. As it turns out, he's the author, though you wouldn't know it from the author's picture at the back of the book, because that guy has no hair. I don't think he knew that I'm a librarian when he gave me the book but nothing's impossible, I guess!

This book is a kind of bonkers collection of stories that include conversations, riddles, and paint chips. And there's a dinosaur! And what I guess is what Marilyn Monroe would look like as a zombie. I love the art style, and the facial expressions, and the dialogue made me chuckle a bit. Plus it was free and my phone'd just died so it was pretty much the best timing to get a free thing to read from a stranger! Thanks, Stephen Burger.… (lisätietoja)

From Bookmooch.

Alex inherits a farm from his aunt in Catalonia, an aunt he thought had died young. He flies in from the States, into an unknown place, where even the language, Catalan, is new to him. Right from the off, there is something bad about the inheritance. Alex is sure he is being followed, and when he goes to check out the farm, he is threatened.

The lawyer who tracked him down, Miguel, introduces him to his sister, Carmen, a talented reporter wasted on the arts section of her paper. Carmen helps Alex to uncover what actually happened during the Civil War and why local hero and businessman, Salvador Oriel, is so keen to keep the information under wraps.

An entertaining thriller with lots of juciy elements, from long-gone, but not forgotten civil war crimes to the wedding of an Infanta, from political corruption to dangerous sex. One of the main characters of the book is Catalonia itself, a fiercely independent autonomous region, with its own language and long history. Burgen, through Alex's newcomer's eyes, gives an introduction to this region.

I did enjoy the book, though it felt like he was throwing too many elements at us all at once. It did bring up some good questions, do people really want to know what happened in the Spanish Civil War? When do we draw a line? I really liked the cultural references, I am a complete language geek, so I could related to Alex writing down Catalan words, trying to make sense of both the language and the culture.… (lisätietoja)