Portugal Books

SPAIN by Jan Morris

When I first read Jan Morris's Spain I had visited that country five times. Knowing her keen eye and passionate prose I expected a rare experience. I was not disappointed. I liken her writing to an impressionist painting. When gazing at a Monet or a Renoir one experiences the almost physical reality of the paintings on ones soul.
So it is with the magic conjured by Morris in Spain. For those who know and love the country and its peoples she reaffirms our convictions. For those who do not yet know them this book could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. For it is a journey where you find yourself sitting next to the author, sharing her bottled water, slicing a pungent cheese and cutting off pieces of spicy sausage to put into the crusty roll of bread still warm from the bakery.
She treks through the major Provinces, takes us through the narrow Moorish streets of Seville, around the ancient University of Salamanca, the eating houses of Madrid and to Avila, the home of the mystic St.Teresa.
Turning the pages at a slower pace than I normally would, I savoured the vigorous style and the images that she conjured. They stirred all the senses. I include the sixth. For Morris reaches into the soul of the people and the cities and the countryside giving rare insights into how and why great events such as the Spanish Armada or the bombing of Guernica in the Civil War may have taken place. The perceptions thus gained reveal to us the underlying urges and passions that drive such great events. Our introduction into the Spanish psyche is developed as we follow Morris along the highways of a growing economy, observing with a keen eye their political and social progress against the backdrop of their recent and turbulent history.
She takes us down the dusty roads trodden by a gaunt figure in rusty armour on a spindly steed followed by a podgy fellow astride a donkey. One almost sees the white sails of windmills that will surely attract the attention of that wandering knight. For it is none other than my demented hero, Don Quixote de la Mancha and Sancho Panza.
Our other senses are constantly called into action by Morris's evocative writing . One can smell the aroma of olive oil heating in a skillet, the saliva inducing garlic lightly browning, whiffs of Cuba's finest burning leaves, and the odours of centuries of wine splashed on the wooden floors of bars and bodegas. She swirls us into the arms of a black eyed gypsy girl dancing a wild Sevillana at a feria in Andalusia, the hot animal smells of a crowded bullring on a sweltering summer's day, the bitter sweet taste of a rough wine squirted down your throat from a leather wine skin by a laughing Basque speaking an unintelligible tongue in Pamplona at the running of the bulls. She takes us into the mountains of Cantabria, along the ancient pathways of the pilgrimage of Santiago de Compostela, trying the ciders and wines, tasting fresh fish and hearing the bagpipes of that Celtic flavoured north coast until we reach Santiago itself.
And being a bit of a gypsy herself she describes them thus. "Much of what seems to us most Spanish is really gypsy. Bull-fighting is an art in which the gitanos have always excelled; flamenco they have made their own; wherever a castanet clicks in Spain, a heel taps, a pair of hands claps, or a deep sad voice wails through the night, then the influence of the gypsies is about. "One night," she writes, "I met two gypsies who asked if I'd like to hear the cante jondo, the deep song. We entered a café. Never in my whole life have I had more fun or been more stimulated by animal high spirits. They went from the sad cante jondo into the most raucous flamenco, the whole room was an uproar of violent clapping, clicking fingers, wild laughs and cries, stamped feet and ear-splitting song." And it is so.
As a travel writer she is in the top echelon. In a recent article in the New Yorker, she wrote `I am an Impressionist, not an analyst.' Her impressions of Spain are, for me, unforgettable.
Bearnard O'Riain
07 July 2007

Obviously, the most important thing about a book is the writing, and I've never yet found much fault in Jan Morris as a travel writer (I haven't read much of her history-writing yet). This book, first written forty years ago and re-released in 1988, is a lyrical work that focuses much on the soul and spirit of Spain and her people, as well as on the history and geography that are so much a part of that soul and spirit. It's entertaining, enlightening, and evocative -- even if you can't help but wonder how much, if any, of it is still relevant today.

Unfortunately, there is much merit in the Publishers Weekly criticisms of this edition. The type is indeed set very small -- and even with the wide margins on most pages, can be decidedly, if unconsciously, hard on the eyes. Interesting as the writing itself was, I sometimes found it hard to keep motoring ahead through the difficult layout. Cecilia Eales' watercolors do add a lighthearted and colorful element to the text-heavy pages, while the contemporary oil paintings, sometimes referenced in the text but often not, add an extra historical dimension. This book could have been about 50 pages longer, just by using a larger type size, with much greater prospects for readability and enjoyment.

In all, this is still a fine book for getting a glimpse into the heart of Spain -- at least as one non-Spanish writer saw it some time ago. Poetic and soulful as well as informative, it strikes me as a good introduction to a nation still much removed from the thoughts and experience of most Americans.

Like other atlas published by this french company, the Portugal/Spain english edition has everything usefull you may want while dealing with maps, specially if you plan to travel by foot, car, coach or train, discovering the magical secrets of continental and insular portions of the Countries in "Iberia" : it covers not only Portugal and Spain mainland, but Azores,Madeira, Canary and Balearic Islands also. It shows you, in the best of scales, even the narrower tracks beaten mostly by local farmers and their animals. It presents all the main distances in general and millions of others, point to point, offers clear legends, easy-understanding symbols, a perfect use of the colours to give you an accurate perception of the landscape you will find, with excellent representation of surface elevations, rivers, lakes, seashore and vegetation: You may feel like an eagle taking a high flight while hunting the best you can find there on the ground. It presents the local names of everything, with no mistakes, pointing out the places of historic/cultural importance and the landmarks of special natural beauty: abbeys, fortresses, castles, palaces, archeological sites, natural parks,waterfalls, caves, forests,canyons,weird geological formations, side by side with all kind of information about road services available, high/motorway exits, airports, railways, ferry connections, beach and ski resorts, etc. Not enough ? you get tens of more detailed maps, in greater scale, wich overview the essential of the most important cities besides an index with thousands of place names with their location on the maps. This spiral-bound edition is particularly easier to handle. So, Your poor atlas survives far longer the mistreat it suffers in the midst of your adventures while snooping these wonderful countries.

Sorry, i wrote the first review of this book, but i missed saying something important to people from english-speaking coutries: all the scales and distances you'll see in maps and tables troughout this Michelin atlas are in centimeters/ kilometers, despite it is an english edition. As a Brazilian traveler, it's OK to me, but it could be a serious problem to one who deals with scales and distances only if it's expressed in inches/miles.

I am an experienced traveler (30+ countries) who is nearing retirement and plan to travel extensively, who has recently become obsessed about finding "good" guidebooks. So this review is a comparison of the books I looked at for Madrid.

I started with the Insight Guide. I was seeking to get background, history, etc. The Insight Guides seem to vary enormously from one to the next in both quality and orientation. I think they are good for an entire country if you are trying to decide where in the country or what parts you want to see. I thought the guide for Madrid was useless. It provided very little information about the city or the culture. It seemed to be best if you were planning on moving to Madrid and wanted to find out the differences between the various suburban areas. I suggest you forget this one.

I looked at the Mini-Rough Guide. I didn't like the format and it was too terse for my taste. In my opinion, Rough Guide still needs to produce a guide for Madrid that is a regular, not a mini Rough Guide. The LP Guide to Madrid seemed pretty mediocre. The stiff covers also made it awkward to use or hold open to a particular page. The information and descriptions were inadequate compared to some other guides. The Eyewitness Guide to Madrid is, I think, the best overall guide to Madrid. (Generally I prefer Eyewitness guides for City's much more than as a guide for an entire country.) The maps are good, the pictures of the food and other items are very helpful. The hotels and restaurant sections were pretty good, but not great. If you are looking for hostels, you will need the LP guide. Eyewitness does not give great historical depth, but it gives you some, probably enough for most tourists. Guide Books are not the best source for detailed historical and cultural information anyway. The Time Out guide was almost like a tourist's yellow pages, primarily a listing of hotels, restaurants, sites, services, etc. It had the best listing of restaurants and hotels and covered all price ranges. It wasn't as good as Eyewitness is describing the things to see and do.

I ended up getting the Eyewitness Guide to use while sightseeing, supplemented by the Time Out guide for picking hotels, restaurants and being able to look up things. Another reviewer recommended this same combination in order to visit Tapas bars. I'm not that much into Tapas, but I still think these two are the best combo.

Incidentally, the Spain Rough and LP guides Madrid sections do not cover Madrid as well as the Madrid-only guides. You are looking at a 60-page section, compared to the Madrid-only guides of around 300 pages length.

If you are going to Madrid there are two books minimum you must read before hand and take with you: Eyewitness Guide Madrid, and this Time Out Guide. I was in Madrid last year and took the previous version of the Time Out with me: I'm going back this year and bought the newer updated version just because it is so good.

To understand why so good, you need to know that Madrid has the greatest number of bars and restaurants per capita of any city in the world. In Spain, the people of Madrid are given the nickname gatos, which means cats, because they stay up all night. They go to work at 8am, leave at noon, go home and sleep after the big meal of the day, return to work at 5pm, work until 9, leave work and go to tapas bars, where they have one drink and a snack, move to the next. Keep moving until around 11pm, when they stop for dinner, then it is off to a disco club, flamenco club, or a bar. But the same m.o.: in for a half hour or hour, then move on again. At 4:30 am on the weekends there are traffic jams because the streets are so busy. And I saw only one person who was drunk, that person undoubtable a tourist. The locals have fun, but behave themselves.

This is why the Time Out guide is so valuable. Even if you dont want to stay up until 4 am, the Time Out guide assumes that just as important as the monuments and art musems, the lifestyle is a 'must do' part of your stay. The book has 109 pages devoted to details on cafes, bars, arts and enteratinment. There is another 22 pages just on shopping; the 18 pages of hotel listings are detailed and a good source of information. The first 34 pages do a solid job of covering history, architecture, and modern Madird; 44 well done pages on sightseeing sights. Although the Eyewitness Guides usually win the best map award, the maps in this guide I think are acutally a little better. Slightly larger and they include the bus routes.

Two of my favorite places I found by reading this book, both on the same street 4 doors apart. The Time Out guide says "CARDAMOMO, open 9pm-4am daily. If you've got any interest in flamenco or salsa, this is an essential stop. The dancing varies from eye-catchingly sensual to reassuringly clumsy. No one here gives fig about such niceties, and the gitano flavour ensures the music can't be resisted for long."

The other is "EL BURLADERO open 3 to 3:30am daily. A packed two-storey locale off Plaza Santa Anna that's regularly full of copupes swinging each other round to flamenco, shouting Ole, and clapping. On the upper floor its calmer and a bit more space."

The descriptions are accurate, you wont find them in the other books. You would miss alot if you didn't have this book on your trip. When you go to Madrid, use the jet lag to your advantage; sleep in the middle of the day and early evening, get up at 10, go out for dinner, wander the Plaza Santa Ana area, catch a flamenco show, and see if Madrid isn't one of your all time favorite cities.

The Basque people are certainly an interesting race; it is believed that theirs is one of the oldest languages in Europe. Where they came from and how they ended up in northern Spain has been a point of contention between anthropologists for some time. They suffered terribly during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930's; the famous painting by Picasso represents some of the suffering in the Basque city of Guernica. The people of that city had the dubious distinction of being the first in history to have been the victims of the deliberate terror bombing of civilians. The Euskadi Ta Askatasuna or ETA has been engaged in a decade's long struggle to create an independent homeland for the Basque people out of the Basque areas in Spain and France.
This book is a collection of photos taken in the Basque regions in Spain and France. It is a rugged, yet beautiful land; most of the buildings are very old. While there are some modern devices displayed in the pictures, the majority could have been taken decades ago and some perhaps over a century ago. People are meeting over drinks, coffee and traditional food. Some of the beautiful pictures of the villages in the valleys could have been taken at the turn of the century.
When people appear in the photo, one thing is clear. The Basques are a very proud people, they have lived on and worked their land for centuries and will continue to do so. Rugged mountains and terrain breeds rugged, hardy people and that certainly describes the Basques. No small set of photographs with associated explanations in a book can truly describe any culture, especially one this old. However, it can both literally and figuratively give you a snapshot and that is done very well in this book.

"A Time We Knew: Images of Yesterday in the Basque Homeland" is the product of a fascinating collaboration between photographer William Albert Allard and the dean of Basque-American literature, Robert Laxalt.

In the fall of 1967, Allard spent two months in the Basque country of northeastern Spain and southwestern France, capturing with his camera the everyday life of the people who lived there. Although Allard spoke no Basque and was linked to the Basque country only through his Basque wife, his stunning photos evoke the tremendous power of the Basque landscape and people: the haunting flanks of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques at evening; the gloomy mountains of the northern coast of Spain just at the approach of a storm; a rough-hewn woman with a scythe at Behorleguy, on the frontier between youth and age, in whose face is reflected the painful past of the ancient Basque people. From a technical point-of-view, these incredible photographs are so good that they could truly be "images of yesterday": the color is brilliant. Alas, though, "yesterday" in the Basque country is no more. The years since 1967 have seen the heavy industrialization of both the French and Spanish sectors of the Basque homeland and the gradual passing of the ancient ways Allard captures here.

Laxalt's contribution to this book is his prose vignettes, some of the best of his characteristically exquisite prose-poetry. A second-generation Basque-American whose father grew up in the French Basque country, Laxalt knows the region as well as probably anyone in the United States. While one cannot miss the heavy dose of romanticism in his prose ("Girls slender as reeds walking hand in hand down the lane, singing an ode to spring in soprano voices pure and light as air") and even pastoralism (exacerbated by the fact that the Basques are some of the world's greatest shepherds), it is obvious that Laxalt is a remarkable writer.

A poetic look at "yesterday" in the Basque country. Get it on your shelf.

This book is not a history book of Spanish anarchism during the Spanish civil war. It is just the compilation of two relatively short essays written by late libertarian Murrary Bookchin. Although Anarchist participations were distinctive and quantatatively numerous during the Spanish civil war ,therefore embarrassing to Stalinists, there has been strong academic biases against Anarchists and Spanish Anarchists' participationin the war.As Chomsky rightly pointed out , "Mandarins" hardly ever mentioned them or blatantly attacked them in their litany of works. For example, Hugh Thomas, the author of one of the most widely read book on Spanish civil war and the adviser for Margaret Thatcher, hardly ever mentioned about Anarchists and contribution to the republican cause in his 1000+ pages work.
Of course, you don't need to believe what Bookchin lauerized about Spanish Anarchists without ciritically judging it ,but please read Borkenau,Orwell,Weil and others who witnessed or participated the civil war, you will know what Bookchin wrote is not entirely derived from his supposedly anarchist belief. It's schintillating essays ,but strongly nostalgic confession of old libertarian and his view on one of the most powerful movement of the people in the 20th century

The two short essays collected in this book serve to complement Bookchin's history of anarchism in Spain leading up to the revolution, titled "The Spanish Anarchists: Heroic Years 1868-1936". These essays do not serve as a proper overview on their own of what happened in the anarchist movement in Spain in the years of the revolution, for a capsule version of that history I recommend checking out sections of Martha Ackelsberg's "Free Women of Spain", or the section in Guerin's "Anarchism: From Theory to Practice". For an in-depth history, check out Broue and Temime or Bolloten's The Spanish Civil War. But Bookchin does draw out some important lessons here about anarchist organization, leadership, charisma, and bureaucratization, and the havoc wreaked by Stlainist influence on the revolution. For those interested in the topic, Vernon Richards' "Lessons of Spain" is another good source.

Poems of angels and gems and fragrance and stars, all written on the downward slope of WWII. H.D. praises the life that survives, the mythic returns of Amen-Ra and Christ, which is also the first budding of spring. London joins in these poems with Karnak and St. John's second city, Paradise--a resurrection of "our earth before Adam," that "grain or seed/opened like a flower." Angels and Magi bring their usual good news, but the last word belongs to Mary Magdalene and the goddesses behind her, shifting from Isis to Venus to H.D. herself. The thick web of allusions reads at times like a parody of Modernist excess, but the impulse behind them (and these were written quickly, after a long dry spell) is more inspired than erudite. H.D. improvised a religion of her own that enfolded the War like a shell, tranforming its destruction to a promise of new life. "Trilogy" is a quiet testament to her faith in writing as redemption, the poet as witness and priest.

H.D.'s "Trilogy" was written about the same time as Eliot's "Four Quartets."

It's a shame H.D.'s war-poem/philosopy-poem isn't as well known as Eliot's.

Eliot deals with time and timelessness--or the eternal within time--and while his verse is very seductive and beautifully interweaves the abstract and the concrete, it merely points to sublimity, never really reaches it.

H.D.'s "Trilogy," really reaches it. There are many many epiphanies made concrete, and her very simple but shattering verse actually takes you to them.

This is a marvelously fluent poem. Yes, there are allusions, but they are simple and bonus, rather than essential.

It is one of those poems that is quite clear immediately, yet repays reading after reading.

It's a pity so few current poets write with such depth and breadth--to say nothing of such passion.

Very pratical and useful book. Covers for walking and biking. I will sure use in my trip next year.

Great background book on the Via de la plata, but the real litmus test for me will come after my husband walks the Via during April 2007 and verifies what is current and what is out of date.

Kev's work seems pretty thorough. I will field test the guide this july.

Author Kev Reynolds is an experienced walker and climber in the French and Spanish Pyrenees. The book describes some of the most interesting parts of the Pyrenees, and includes some 20 pages of color and black/white photographs.

For everyone, new or already acustomed to the range, planning to make a day-trip walk or true hike in the Pyrenees this book can be of nice help for finding good ideas what areas to visit and what routes to take. Based on this book the detailed maps can be bought, and the details of the route further discovered.

For every massif there is a 2 page introduction, followed by route descriptions (usually at around 1 page length, sometimes including a photograph). Usually the routes are for experienced walkers no problem, however overweighted first time walkers can forget to follow the routes.

From extensive experience with the range, it must be said that Mr. Reynolds pretty well describes the tracks, without to big mistakes. Shure, you still need a French IGN map, or a less good) Spanish Editorial Alpina map, but this book gives a good impression in what to expect.

The book further includes a short description of the HRP (Haute Route Pyreneenne), a map desciption and a bibliography. Author Kev Reynolds has also written Classic Walks in the Pyrenees (larger sized, with more photograps, describing 24-classic walks) and The Pyrenees.

I initially started reading this for a "Sex and Death" class I took at school. Amazingly, "Western Attitudes Towards Death" has been one of the most inciteful books I've ever read. Aries makes it interesting to look at death in a historical aspect. For me, it was most interesting in the fact that you can see how people lived during a specific time period by studying how they viewed death. The parallels between life and death in EVERY society has become astonishingly clear to me. It's short reading...definately in a day...and well worth the time.

i had a certain agenda in reading this book . . . there is a conspiracy of silence regarding death in america/europe.
aries takes the reader on a morbid but a fascinating journey through western history of death. the conclusion is that death has become the "new pornography" (quoting gorer) in a modern/enlightenment based societies. death is the great scandal in the western culture where everything is, or at least hoped to be in the future, controlled by the development of science. but death lies beyond that hope. at least that's my take on it.

This was the first book I have read by Robert Wilson. Amazon recommended it to me as a frequent purchaser of books by Alan Furst. Wilson is not quite as good or evocative as Furst. The novel shifts back and forth between what appears to be a conventional murder investigation in the late 1990s in Portugal and the story of an SS officer who is sent to Portugal during World War II to procure wolfram (tungsten) for the Nazi war effort. There is little to like about any of the characters in this book, including the murder victim. Also, the book takes forever to establish the connection between the World War II story line and the more current one. That said, the book contains some surprising twists and turns. It keeps the reader's interest right up until the conclusion.

Robert Wilson's A Small Death in Lisbon is a fantastic World War II/modern era detective story. The cover of the book cleverly integrates the Nazi swastika into the buidling upon which sinister Nazi secret police shadows fall. Symbolically, the Nazi swastika interwoven into the buildings's windows represent the corrupt foundations of much of modern Europe.

Economic super powers such as Swedish retailer IKEA are tainted by Nazism. IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad admitted to being an ex-Nazi. Wonder where his seed money came from? Similarly, in A Small Death in Lisbon, the machinations of the Nazi banker span decades, from WW II to modern, post Salazar, Portugal.

Setting this story in Portugal, Wilson examines the truly global reach of World War II. Remote lands like Portugal became vital to the war efforts of both Allies and Axis. Wolfram, also known as tungsten carbide, is a hard metal vital in providing tank armor and armor piercing ammunition. Portugal possessed huge reserves of this material and its neutral/fascist regime of Dr. Antonio Salazar became coveted by the belligerent powers.

Wilson expertly interweaves the murder of a young child with modern day Portugese society. The liberal use of Portugese phrases, food and coffee descriptions and above all, the ever present "barbaric heat" of summer transport the reader to the scene.

This work is amazing and you'll love it.

Fantastic book--rich, complex, wonderful characters, great writing. I'm looking forward to reading Wilson's other books.

So good. Great story development. But it's the little things that keep you amazed and engaged with the writing. Wilson comes up with phrasing, character insights and quips that are so true and magical they shimmer on just about every page. You know you're going to stumble on one every so often, and they pull you along.

This is one of the best thrillers I've read recently and, to my mind, Robert Wilson belongs in the same league with Michael Connelly, John Lescroart and a few others. What makes this book so superior to so many others is that it nicely blends two complex plots which work their way to a satisfying ending. And in the telling, you learn a lot about some interesting things, such as the wolfram (tungsten) intrigue during WWII, where Portugal supplied the vital mineral to both the Nazis and the Allies. You'll also learn a lot about Portugese history over the latter half of the 20th century. The hero, Inspector Ze Coelho, is an outstanding character and the plot(s) are suspenseful, authentic and compelling. The ending is a bit of a surprise but Wilson really never telegraphs his punches. Also, thankfully, he avoids the convenient coincidences that other, less able, authors employ to advance their plots or to end their books. All in all, this was one of the best reads I've had in recent months. I think this is Wilson's best book. Truly a very satisfying and enjoyable book.