. Here are fifteen books that the critics of notebook have recommended during the month of May. You will find novel, essay and some important recoveries.
Instructions for living without it
Empar Moliner Column 224 pages. 20.91 euros Situated at least on the same qualitative level as ‘Benvolguda’, the novel has as protagonist a woman who decides to govern the course of the circumstances. By Ponç Puigdevall
The last voyage of the schooner Panda
Jordi Maluquer de Motes Editorial Base 256 pages. 20 euros Jordi Maluquer de Motes, a prestigious name in Catalan and Spanish historiography, has allowed himself to be tempted by fiction with ‘The last voyage of the schooner Panda’, in which he recreates the life of Captain Pere Gibert. By Jaume Claret Miranda
Roads of France
Joan Puig and Ferreter Foreword by Enric Casasses 776 pages 24.90 euros @ 10.99 euros Publication: 20 May ‘Camins de França’ is the great novel of the first half of the 20th century, celebrated by Joan Fuster or Gabriel Ferrater, but little read. By Miquel Bonet
Gothic feminism
Núria Gómez Gabriel and Ingrid Guardiola H&O 186 pages. 20 euros Gothic feminism is an investigation into the cultural construction of the monster, that is to say, the “feminine emanations of a supernatural, morbid, mysterious, tremendous, even abject character” that have historically resisted the ideal. By Ofélia Carbonell
Under the skin, a tree
Pere Pena Eclecta 552 pages. 24.90 euros Pere Pena does a “post-memory” exercise on the Civil War in the novel ‘Sota la pell, un arbre’, where he weaves together the vicissitudes of the local anecdote of a town, Serós. By Ponç Puigdevall
One square meter
Lucia Ramis Anagram 248 pages. 19.90 euros The Mallorcan writer recounts in ‘Un meter quadrat’ the drift of Barcelona and the real estate market now that houses have become an investment asset. By Clara Blanchar
Fricandonation
Miquel Bonet Destino 296 pages. 20.90 euros @9.99 At the dictation of the Dark Seal, the author takes us to the baubles of high restoration and does an impeccable job: festive buffoonish episodes and a satirical wit that holds everything together. By Ponç Puigdevall
Leviathan. Or the matter, form and power of an ecclesiastical and civil republic
Thomas Hobbes. Translation of the English and Latin versions, presentation and editing by Josep Monserrat Molas and Roger Castellanos Corbera Edicions UB 736 pages. 45 euros Together with professor Roger Castellanos Corbera, professor of philosophy Josep Monserrat has translated Hobbes’s book, one of the key works of modern philosophy. By Joan Bordeaux
I want to dress like you
Elisabet Coll-Vinent Ara Books 96 pages. 11.95 euros The author of this short essay does an exercise in brutal honesty that is rare in the fashion sector. By Mar Rocabert
All my life searching
Kae Tempest Translation by Maria-Arboç Terrades L’Altra. 352 pages. 22.90 euros The author calls for tenderness and a leisurely reading in ‘Tota la vida trência’, his second novel, starring someone who returns to his hometown after prison. By Aïda Camprubí Hinojosa
Summer architecture
Lluís Cuspinera and Pepo Segura Editions of the Secret Garriga 432 pages. 50 euros The researcher Lluís Cuspinera recovers in an illustrated book the Catalan silver age in modernist architecture. By Xavier Vidal-Folch
Manual of defense of the Catalan
Óscar Andreu Univers 80 pages. 12.95 euros The success of the ‘Manual de defensa del Catalan’ converges in the recent trend of increasing linguistic awareness. By Rudolf Ortega
East of Eden
John Steinbeck Translation by Miquel Sorribas The Golden Needle 728 pages. 27.90 euros The Nobel Prize winner returns to bookshops with new translations: the stories of ‘La gran vall’ and the novel ‘A l’est de l’Edèn’, a generational epic that is his most complex work. By Adrià Pujol
Amelia of the Camellias
Etna Miró Cap de brot 304 pages. 21 euros Apart from not disdaining a hilarious and at the same time serious moral introspection of characters who, more than people, seem like encircling psychological fluctuations that reach us through the immense analytical apparatus – divisions, subdivisions, oppositions – available to the author, it is also a way of putting into practice what PG Wodehouse believed literature should be, “a musical comedy without music”. By Ponç Puigdevall
Popol Wuj. The Sacred Book of the K’iche’ Maya
Edition by Sam Colop Translation by Ramon Pelegrí Manifest Books 200 pages. 17 euros The ‘Popol Wuj’ explores the destructive emotions that arise in the hearts of men and gods: pride, envy and fear. How to read the sacred book of the Mayans from the contemporaneity, by Oriol Regué Sendrós
