This is the third of several collections of his journalism Cercas has published in book form, this one covering articles published between 1998 and 2006, mostly (but not exclusively) in El País. Cercas covers all manner of subjects - literature, history, travel, a painting by Ronald B Kitaj, his life as a writer, and much more. He seems to write short pieces in much the same style as he writes his novels - superficially simple, and with a twinkle in his eye, but always with an underlying edge of commitment to the subject. If he's writing about it, then it's because it matters to him.

The title is a reference to a dialogue from Machado's Juan de Mairena in which Agamemnon argues with his swineherd about the nature of truth - Cercas takes this (in part) as a wry reminder that the truth of the powerful isn't always the same truth that the rest of us experience. And of course the writer's duty is to dig down to the truth, whatever that might be.

I skimmed this book - it's classically the sort of thing you should keep on your bedside table for a few months of occasional dipping, and I didn't have time for that before returning it to the library. But among the pieces I read there were a few very striking ones, including "Volver a case", which reads like a preliminary sketch for what became the 2017 novel El monarca de las sombras. ( )