Barcelona Libraries recommend
On Sant Jordi (St George’s Day), there are people who discover an author, fall in love with a book or are moved by a story.
This year, as a prologue to Sant Jordi's Day, Barcelona Libraries are bringing back the Sant Jordi Dialogues, sessions that feature conversations among writers, based on affinities between their latest works, culminating in the Proclamation for Reading. On the occasion of these sessions, Barcelona libraries suggest texts related to the person giving the proclamation, Imma Monsó, and the authors taking part in the Dialogues.
This year, enjoy the recommended texts and the dialogues we have organised. Because the best stories are happening in Barcelona libraries.
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Mamut [Mammoth]
Eva Baltasar
Mamut 's main character is an old-fashioned woman trapped in modern-day life. She leaves. She changes her habitat and becomes the mistress of an isolated farmhouse. Instinct kicks in, her consciousness changes. She does things that go against accepted behaviour in the new millennium: she learns to live without intermediaries.
Library: Barceloneta - La Fraternitat
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Coníferes [Conifers]
Marta Carnicero
Joel lives in Walden, an idyllic community in the middle of nature that rejects new technologies and champions a life that follows traditional customs. In order to get closer to Alina, a newcomer he is fascinated by, he starts to send letters to himself to her house. .
Library: Fort Pienc
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La cosina gran [The older cousin]
Laura Gost
Rosa is 12 years old when her older cousin is orphaned and comes to live with her and her parents. From that moment on, the differences that separate her from Tina will condition her adolescence, a time which is a crude mixture of naivety and maturity.
Library: Jaume Fuster
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Pedra, paper, estisores [Rock, paper. scissors]
Maksim Óssipov
Russia, 21st century, the characters in these short stories live there and know there is no way out, that their lives will play out there, in a country that practices the most pitiful sort of cult: banditry hailed as virtue.
Library: Ignasi Iglésias - Can Fabra
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Aquest amor que no és u = Este amor que no es uno [This love isn't one]
Blanca Llum Vidal
The author offers a flourishing and powerful experience of identity. Flourishing, because this poetry anthology is a germination of language that pollinates the reader with its rhythm and voluptuous lexicon, and powerful, because it fosters and favours new, prolific flowerings.
Library: Guinardó - Mercè Rodoreda
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Trilogía de la guerra [Trilogy of war]
Agustín Fernández Mallo
Like the stars, the fallen in these wars are linked to the main characters of this story, from the same places, but today they intertwine their destinies through surprising connections.
Library: Camp de l’Arpa - Caterina Albert
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Istanbul, Istanbul
Burhan Sönmez
Locked in an underground cell in Istanbul, four men await their interrogators. To make the waiting more bearable, they break the silence by sharing stories full of tenderness and pain, forming a choral narrative that always revolves around the city that has imprisoned them.
Library: Xavier Benguerel
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Queridos niños [Dear children]
David Trueba
The main character accompanies a presidential candidate on their electoral campaign, and is responsible for making the speeches more ferocious. And as you know, politics isn't about competing, it's about winning, winning, and winning.
Library: Collserola - Josep Miracle
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Obra maestra [Masterpiece]
Juan Tallón
The story told in this novel is completely implausible, but, even so, it actually happened.
Library: Clarà
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De senectute politica: carta sin respuesta a Cicerón [Unanswered letter to Cicero]
Pedro Olalla
The author establishes a lively dialogue with the ancient intellectual, who was as committed to his community as he is, and reveals to what point the passage of time doesn't necessarily mean decadence.
Library: Poblenou - Manuel Arranz
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La dona pèl-roja [The red-headed lady]
Orhan Pamuk
A master builder of wells and his new apprentice are hired to find water on barren land. And while they fight against the heat of summer, digging down by hand, metre by metre, they develop a father-son relationship that neither of them have ever known before.
Library: Montserrat Abelló
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Ganivet [Knife]
Jo Nesbø
Times are hard for Harry Hole, the brilliant, unpredictable ex-inspector of the Oslo police: Rakel, the only woman he has ever loved has left him; at the police station, they only let him work on boring cases.
Library: Sant Antoni - Joan Oliver
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Terres mortes [Dead lands]
Núria Bendicho
This novel begins with the violent death of Joan, unravelling the story of a cursed family. He was shot in the back, in an isolated old house, where only the family lives. Which of them could have done it?
Library: Francesc Candel
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El ritmo perdido [Lost rhythm]
Santiago Auserón
This book is a fascinating journey to the secret roots and hidden origins of our music, where we discover how Spanish musical tradition is still rooted in black music.
Library: Vapor Vell