Spain Books

This is a great book to get you pointed in the right direction about the law in Spain. Searl has a plain English style of writing and is easy to understand. It's regularly updated and well worth buying the newest edition as the laws here change frequently!

I bought this book back in February 06 when we were in the process of buying a property in Spain. Not being a native and not speaking spanish very well, it is sometimes an overwhelming idea to buy a property in a foreign country. There are thousands of people each year who are purchasing properties but I have found that not many really understand the process involved. Many hire people to take care of all those details but go into it blindly. When you ask them questions, they do not know how to answer.

I found that this book exceeded my expectations. It is very well written and gives thought to many details of the entire process, giving the reader a better understanding of what to expect.

Reading this book helps you make informed decisions and not leaving it up to chance. A must have book!

No previous Spain calendar is packed with as many photos as this stunning 2005 calendar of Spain's most beautiful sights. The photos are sharp, colorful, diverse, and each month spotlights a different city or region which makes passing another month a delight. I, MadridMan (a TRUE "Spainiac"!), am always looking for my next year's Spain calendar and this one is a real joy to own. Saludos, MadridMan

I love this calendar! I get a new one each year. It reminds us of our trip to Spain several years ago. Also, the boxes are large enough that you can easily write what you need in them.

Great book, we used it all the time during our 4 day stay, We tried the recommended restaurants and they were great, but there are lots of others not listed. We stayed at the Petit Palace Opera Gardens, too new for the book but a reasonable, center of the action, hotel. Dont be fooled by the reviews most are written by Brits and their expectations seem to be different. I should know I was one. If you only buy one book on Barcelona this is the one.

Purchased for our cruise which had a port stop in Barcelona. Very informative. Definitely recommend for the first time visitor to Barcelona.

My wife and I bought this book prior to a trip to Portugal. The book gave us really great information on the history, major sights and attractions during our drive through the country broken up into very organized sections (by region). It also gave very useful information on rules of the road, emergency numbers and even a road map. Where we think the book fell a little short was in lodging info. Use it as a guide only, because often the listed lodgings were not numerous enough in this book to be useful. A quick Google yields more lodging info, or even a chat with a concierge or a local travel agent or the local welcome center (in Fatima for example). We basically went with the wind and booked lodging on the fly based on local information and recommendations rather than this book (we were glad we did). Our suggestion, rent a GPS with your rental car, pack this book, get a real road map and ask the locals for recommendations, and do some Googling before you go. Great guide book to have with you though. Enjoy your trip!

I am the author of this book and I want to correct some confusion caused by the fact that it is listed twice by Amazon. This is the correct listing in terms of the publisher and bibliographical details, but if you order the book through the other listing, which has incorrect details but a a lower price, you will get the same book. The confusion exists because the book was first posted on Amazon by Greenhill Books, which was the company that originally expected to publish the book. However, last year Greenhill merged with Pen & Sword Books and the title was assigned to Pen & Sword's new military publishing division, Frontline Books. There is accordingly only one book and it has now been published in England, so copies will be available shortly here in the U.S.

2008's "Albuera" is a thoughtful and well-written examination of Wellington's difficult 1811 campaign in Spain. Wellington would ultimately fail to seize either of the two gateway fortresses of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz into Spain. However, hard-fought Allied victories at Barrosa, Fuentes d'Onoro, and Albuera helped mature Anglo-Portuguese-Spanish forces and established a moral ascendency over French forces that would not be surrendered for the duration of the war. Author Peter Edwards therefore identifies 1811 as the turning point of the Peninsular War. Working from a mixture of primary and secondary sources, Edwards captures a nice tactical and operational level perspective on the campaign.

At the beginning of 1811, Wellington's Anglo-Portuguese Army cleared Portugal for the third and final time, chasing French Marshal Messina's starving French Army back into Spain after a winter before the Lines of Torres Vedra. The movement of French reinforcements to join Massena created the opportunity for an Anglo-Spanish sortie out of Cadiz. When Spanish forces failed to react to a French counterattack at Barrosa, outnumbered British troops under Graham repelled the attack before retiring into Cadiz.

Further North, Wellington divided his army to thrust toward the key avenues of approach into Spain. That Wellington's Army and its commander still were not yet the superb fighting machine of 1813-1814 was evident from the mishandled combats at Sabugal and Campo Mayor, where Allied forces failed to fully exploit positional advantage.

Massena turned back on Wellington in early May, seeking to lift the siege of Almieda by attacking the Allied Army at Fuentes de Onoro. The Allied Army maintained its position in a three-day battle by the narrowest of margins. Edwards' narrative suggests Wellington may have been overconfident in his ability to respond to French battlefield tactics but French forces failed to press home their flank attack on the second day. The French inability to beat British infantry when meeting on anything like equal terms was key to Allied survival.

The major battle of the 1811 campaign was the clash at Albuera, forever remembered as the bloodiest single day of the Peninsular War. Marshal Beresford commanded an Anglo-Portuguese-Spanish force in defense of the siege of Badajoz against a relief attempt by Marshal Soult. Soult cleverly managed to place huge forces on the open right flank of the Allied Army, a situation that would normally have guaranteed a French victory. As Edwards' patient retelling of the battle makes clear, British and Spanish infantry simply refused to acknowledge defeat, engaging in a bloody slugfest from which the French were first to withdraw. Beresford is shown to have lost control of the fight and to have been bailed out by the initiative of his subordinates.

In the closing chapters, the Allied Army learned some hard lessons in a failed hasty siege of Badajoz in June 1811, lessons it would make good in 1812 at both Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz.

Edwards' narrative is a nice mixture of first-person recollections by battle participants and analysis by established historians such as Oman and Napier, stitched together by his perspective as a historian and military officer. The result is a nicely-reasoned analysis of each battle and of the campaign. Edwards pays homage to the British regimental system that produced such outstanding infantry, and finds credit for British cavalry, traditionally much-maligned in Peninsular histories. For all that the campaign failed to accomplish, Edwards establishes that Wellington gained a moral ascendency over his French opponents, who at two confrontations at the Coa in late 1811, and in later years, would lack confidence in attacking even an outnumbered Wellington on ground of his own choosing.

"Albuera" is very highly recommended to students of the Peninsular War as a fresh look at well-traveled ground. The general reader with some military background will also find "Albuera" to be an entertaining and educational read.

This is an amazing book. It is a story of a young man who has a dream of hidden treasure. It is a book that alludes to that fact that all of us have a purpose and a dream. Yet many settle and give up their dream, and lose their passion for life. In this book it is stated again and again that each of us has our own Personal Legend, a quest; "When you pursue your personal legend the universe will conspire with you to make it happen." You will follow Santiago on his adventure and during the process be challenged to think about your goals and dreams and what you would have to do to pursue them.

O'Callaghan's study was a Godsend to scholarly aficionados of the Cantigas. With his well-documented and readable style, he validates this enchanting set of manuscripts as a historical source. Amplifying his reading with more conventional primary sources, he presents an entertaining and focused biography of one of Spain's most interesting monarchs. The plates, although in black-and-white, are extremely useful -- one could only wish there were more of them, for the price!