Spain Books

This book is a comprehensive collection of Dali's work, perhaps all of it. The pieces are chronologically ordered from his first childhood attempts to his final masterpieces. The colors in the pictures are as close as you can get in photo reproductions of his work, and many of the images are full page (and this is a big book). Some of the images have short comments about the painting in the captions. There are also photos of the artist at work and play. Biographical information on the influences that shaped this unusual character is also included. This book is a must have for any Dali fan. If you can't own one of his paintings, this is the next best thing.

This is the best novel that I have read from XXth century Spanish literature. Through a deep emotional and profound language, Esther Tusquets introduces us into the world of this female narrator whose name is not spelled out in the entire novel. At the same time, El mismo mar de todos los veranos explores female subjectivity in an unprecedented way, and it is the first Spanish novel ever to portray lesbianism in its literature. Through this creative language full of metaphors, imagery, symbolism, and stories, the narrator introduces us into her world and into her mind, in fact, throughout the whole novel, it is the mind and experience of this anonymous narrator that the reader explores. El mismo mar de todos los veranos at the same time presents a critical portrayal of marriage, family, and heterosexuality, showing that women's experience is very limited; the narrator has always felt unsatisfied and a deep sense of failure when it comes to the traditional roles that are assigned to women (wife, lover, daughter, mother), leaving her with nothing else but language, words, metaphors, imagery and a deep desire to tell past stories. It is this intimate language that shows how female experience and homosexuality (in this particular case lesbianism) can only exist in isolation, and it is precisely in this state of isolation that past and present will coexist. What personally passionates me about this novel is that it portrays our precarious and insignificant existence as human beings; when we have lost the love of our lives, when all our dreams and expectations have never come true, or when they at least are not what we would have expected them to be or what we believed they should have been, when all the tenderness and love have gone away, we are only left with a deep sensation of sadness and emptiness, and the only things that we have left are language, words, metaphors, symbolism, and the desire to relive and retell a painful past.
An excellent masterpiece to be read by every contemporary reader.

This book treats in great depth the history of San Antonio, Texas. It approaches the history from the standpoint of "community" formation. From an author who served as James Michener's researcher while writing his "TEXAS" one would expect the research is thorough and objective. One is not disappointed!

J. F. de la Teja is the greatest living historian of San Antonio. Here, he puts its history, its people, its institutions, its acequias and how they blend together in a single source. This book covers the early [Spanish] period of the city, and provides the opportunity to see the early settlement, to imagine the lives of those who began a new life here on the far northern reaches of New Spain, back in the early eighteenth century.

It is a "must have" book for anyone interested in San Antonio's early days: an outstanding resource for the student of Texas history.

If this isn't too personal, when I gave up beer for fatherhood, I rediscovered my joy of literature. However, of my three favorite authors at the time, Twain, Traven, and McMurtry (early Mcmurtry was pretty darn good), I had read just about all there was. Where to turn to next? While pondering that question in 1989, I overheard on the news that Camilo Jose Cela had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. From that time on I have been an avid reader of most Nobel-Prize winning novelists and it all started with Cela. I remember all of my Spanish Lit professors had "La Familia de Pascual Duarte" on their shelves along with Cervantes and the usual suspects. I read that book and wanted more. However, Cela can be challenging.

When I got a copy of "San Camilo, 1936" I was shocked to find that sentences were pages long and all the normal-lengthed chapters were one extended paragraph. Not the book to pick up with just a few minutes to spare. Reading Saramago helped cure me of the fear on endless sentences and paragraphs so I took "San Camilo, 1936" on a cruise recently. I read it and I'm glad I did. It was hard to stop in the middle of a page but I had plenty of lengthy times for reading. The book struck me as the caffein-induced thoughts of a young man. In the first chapter, his thoughts focussed on the local houses of ill-repute. In the second chapter, the focus was on the deaths of several women and one in particular. By the third chapter, I was starting to see a true focus developing. I came to appreciate "San Camilo, 1936" as a unique literary form where history and perspective emerges in the thoughts of this young man. All sex at first but then disturbing events begin to consume more of his thoughts. As the Nationaist rebellion begins, we understand how the Spanish mind began to absorb the increasing events in their lives. Our narrator shows through his thoughts how the rebellion gradually comes to the forefront of his focus. We see the characters, who were once just fellow citizens, break into factions and how the cause becomes greater than love and respect. It really worked well and I presume that this was what Cela wanted the reader to understand.

The closing chapter is a brief one (but still one long paragraph) in which the author analyzes the Spanish mind and concludes with a plea for love. Cela is a bit more earthly with his concept of love but, then, he's been that way throughout the book. I found myself underlining a number of passages where, amidst the repetion, brilliant observations would emerge.

I'm glad I've finally read "San Camilo, 1936". I'd read the brief dedication dozens of times over the years. If it's not against the rules, it's worth sharing;
"To the conscripts of 1937, all of whom lost something; their life, their freedom, their dreams, their hope, their decency. And not to the adventurers from abroad , Fascists and Marxists, who had their fill of killing Spaniards like rabbits and whom no one had invited to take part in our funeral."
After reading and re-reading that dedication, I knew that this had to be a brilliant novel. I'm glad that I finally found the time to discover that it truly is.

San Manuel Bueno is a priest in a small pastoral village in northern Spain among high mountains and blue water lakes. His fame as a Saint has already moved to the Bishop when Angela, a local girl returned from school and her intelligent brother Lazarus who is a progressive educated man returned rich from America decide to discover what makes the priest tick.
What follows is one of the most engaging stories of the meaning of faith. What was the reason we were placed here for a brief moment? What good is there in forgiveness? What makes a man love his neighbor? "The truth? The truth, Lazarus, is perhaps something so unbearable, so terrible, something so deadly, that simple people could not live with it!" said the priest. Later he continues"...he who sees God's face, he who sees the eyes of the dream, the eyes with which He looks at us, will die inexorably and forever." Ranks among Unamuno's best.

This is a very good book to read, but most important is the list of names (last Names) that Mr. Bonnin has been able to put together so you can trace your ancestry if you are of Spanish descent. He also tackles antisemitism of the Jews of Spain since before the crusades up to recent times. I'm not sure if there is an English version out yet.

This book was originally written in 1957, but was reprinted several times. Because of my interest in the Inquisition, I decided to read it, though I don't usually read older books. I found myself immediately drawn in to an exquisitely exciting, dramatic, and well-written historical novel!

The plot deals more with the characters who are caught up in a fanatically religious time, the late 16th century of Spain, rather than the actual history itself. There is aristocratic Isabella, betrothed to Domingo, though she is in love with his dashing brother Blasco. There is Bianca, a wild gypsy girl who becomes Isabella's maid, but who has a secret affair with Blasco.

When Blasco is sent by King Philip on a secret mission to France, he sees Catholics there slaughter the Protestant Huguenots, which forever changes his opinion of Catholicism. During the uprising, he risks his life to save a Huguenot woman, then brings her to Spain, where she continues to be in danger from the Catholic Inquisitors.

While he is gone, his beloved Bianca and her mistress Isabella are abducted by English pirates, and once in England, the two Catholic women, in a reversal of religious fanaticism, find themselves in a land where Catholics are persecuted by Protestants.

Many twists and turns take place, keeping the reader guessing, and involved with all the delightful characters, including the children who take a leading role in the story. I dare not give any more of the plot away about what happens to Domingo, Blasco, Bianca, and Isabella as their lives are moved along by the forces of religious fervor. Delicious reading!

A 14-year-old boy sits in the darkness of the Holiday Theater watching a scene of anti-Mexican racism in a Rock Hudson/Elizabeth Taylor movie. This scene, this memory, is at the heart of SCENE FROM THE MOVIE GIANT, a remarkable book-length poem in five parts by Tino Villanueva. He excavates the meaning of this scene and, in doing so, grapples with urgent questions of cultural identity. Tino Villanueva's SCENE FROM THE MOVIE GIANT is winner of the American Book Award for Poetry.

"Villanueva seems to be the total integration of the English-speaking intellectual with the Spanish-speaking counterpart. Villanueva has given us an unusual approach to poetic biculturalism." --World Literature Today

"All poems declare one thing: my heart aches...Villanueva's exceptional poems are evidence of poetry's redemptive powers of forgiveness and the solace people achieve through the word." --Harvard Review

"...handsomely produced, well-edited, and efficiently distributed as Chicano literature...a(n) uncommonly powerful addition to American Literature..." --The Texas Observer

The English translation of this monumental volume is titled "She Went in Haste to the Mountain." If you read no other book on Garabandal, you have to read this one! In either English or Spanish it is the most heavily-researched, and well documented account of the events ever written. I'm so grateful to God for letting meet Father Eusebio Pesquera when I was in Garabandal (shortly before he died), and he signed my Spanish translation. This priest was a living Saint, and Garabandal was his whole life, and he proves it by the meticulous research and solid, yet beautiful narrative that is unlike any other book on the subject. This book is an absolute TREASURE!

"This volume gathers an assortment of letters, works, illustrations, and photographs--some previously unpublished. In his superb introduction, Maurer (Spanish, Boston Univ.) re-creates and probes this intense friendship, bringing the reader into the wondrous and exciting world of two extraordinary young men. Written between 1925 and 1936, the letters offer intimate glimpses of this friendship and of the artistic insights of two of the dominant artistic figures of the past century. [...] Thoughtfully and sensitively conceived, this is an intellectually sound and compelling volume." F. Colecchia, CHOICE 9/05