Bruno Blog

The novel I’m recommending this week has a story of its own. It was read by someone who did an internship with me and fell in love with this book. She highly recommended it and we decided to go for it. As soon as I read the novel, I knew there was something charming in it. Something books either have or don’t, and this literary thriller has something special, because Javier Arias has that gift of writing beautifully but with the right tension to keep you trapped in a plot where mystery and nostalgia come together. The cocktail is a perfect and good-measured book that will reach a large audience. Moreover, it has behind a great publisher like Leo Teti and the Umbriel imprint.

In 1982, when he was just three years old, Samir was abandoned by his mother on the beach of El Saler. She blindfolded him and told him: “Don’t move, I’ll be right back”. But she never did. No one knew why she did not return, and the boy ended up in a juvenile center with no other identity than his name and a handful of memories. Samir grew up among orphans and the disinherited of the world, but with the determination to have a chance in life. Thirty years after his mother forgot him on that beach, Samir is no longer a helpless child but captain in the Judicial Police of Valencia. However, his past will mysteriously come back to haunt him. The discovery of the body of a young woman, murdered hours earlier in the same spot where he had been abandoned as a child, does not seem to be a coincidence. The fact that she had his name and phone number on it is no coincidence either. Captain Santos will start an investigation that will turn into a puzzle where the lost pieces of his and his mother’s past will end up being fundamental to discover the truth about that corpse. After all, deep down, Samir had always hoped that someday his mother would come back to look for him. Narrated with brilliance and emotion, the suspense and the plot become the best attraction to read this book. The author builds the story, alternating past and present in a fluid and rhythmic way, knowing that a novel not requires only a good story, but powerful writing as well.

Years ago, I made my first astrological chart, I follow good astrologers and I am sure that the stars mark a path. Since I was a little girl, I liked to know the characteristics of my horoscope and I bought all the books about love between signs, as a good geeky teenager in love.

That’s why I love to introduce you today the ASTROLOVE series by Esther Sanz, not only because astrology is a hot issue amongst girls, (even Calzedonia has socks with the signs of the zodiac or Zara, for example, has sweaters with the different moons), but because Esther is the perfect person to write about this topic for the girls of the house, since she is an editor of astrology books, among many others, and she knows a lot about the subject. Also, because her stories and protagonists always have that perfect quality with the addictive point that young people need.

We have signed for three books and last week the first one named LA VOZ DEL UNIVERSO (La Galera) was published. In this title, Luna, who does not believe in horoscopes or in the stars, partly because her mother is an astrologer and partly because the universe seems to be against her. She is a Leo, a born leader, but she has no friends, except for her neighbor Pol. One afternoon, she finds a note on a bench from someone in trouble and who signs as Pisces. She decides to find them. Pol, along with some of his mother’s astrology books and Olivia, his speech partner, decide to join the cause and create Astrolove, a sentimental horoscope clinic which soon becomes very popular in high school.

A middle grade series, with a distinct and addictive theme, that will encourage readers to get even more hooked on reading through the stars.

Almost everyone has heard of Schiller, the German poet and philosopher who, along with Goethe, is considered Germany’s most important playwrights and central figures of the Weimar classicism. Few know about the summer they spent together in 1794, the time when Carla Gracia places her novel “Nos recordaran”, published in Spanish by the publishing house Catedral and in Catalan by Univers, originally written in Catalan and English, as Carla has a PhD in creative writing from Bath Spa University in England, one of the most prestigious universities of art and creativity in the world. Her tutors, Tracy Brain; bestselling author behind the name Clare Kendall, and Gerard Woordward; Booker Prize shortlisted poet and novelist, supported her during the process of creating this novel, which is part of her PhD.

The novel uncovers the authors’ conflicts, their weaknesses, shadows and frailties, highlighting the women behind them, who made them flourish. Carla manages to make it not just another novel about two intellectuals, but a game of mirrors between women and men, a process of discovery that awakens the reader’s emotion to live those moments, not very well known, of two lives where the conflict of ideas and the artistic process is part of the story to understand these two relevant figures of the 18th century, Goethe and Schiller.

Carla manages to bring us closer to these two great men in a natural way and make us participants of an extraordinary world where light and shadows are mixed, a way that works very well literary speaking because readers want to know about the characters of this status, but they need this novel to approach them in a deep and at the same time, simple way, which Carla does with her eyes closed.

I think it is a novel of great quality that deserves to be bequeathed and translated into many more languages.

This week’s blog comes with a top recommendation. Míriam Tirado, author of the book Rabietas: Consejos y herramientas para lidiar con ellas con conciencia, humor y amor, already translated into Portuguese, Italian and German, Removidas, and several children’s books, which are already reference books among families such as El hilo invisible or Tengo un volcán, publishes tomorrow Límites with Ediciones Urano.

A great topic of debate nowadays, because there is a large group of parents who still think that raising from conscience is not setting limits. Precisely, what Míriam tries to transmit in this book is that limits must be set from conscience, but that there must always be limits in education, and that the sooner you apply them the better. However, the big question is, how do we do that? How do we avoid falling into authoritarianism? How do we avoid creating insecurities in the little ones?

In this book, Míriam shares with us her own doubts, learnings, challenges and achievements on the road to loving and responsible limits, exploring our own relationship with the limits, so that we are able to provide children with coherent containment. Children are like sponges and perceive everything that we (adults) feel, so we must also be aware of how we live our daily lives.

At home, we have always said the same thing: it is much easier to say yes than to say no, and avoid a conflict, but teaching when it is yes and when it is no implies transmitting to the new generations an education that is increasingly absent and, as a consequence, we are faced with lost young people who do not know how to get out of a comfort zone where they have been locked up, even without knowing it. Every day I realize how important it is to have parents and educators around us, that from conscience and love know how to set the right limits. Thank you Míriam, for one more book, an essential one for all families, and for this valuable contribution in the world of education, since one of the most complicated jobs that adults have is to educate, in the best possible way, the ones we love the most, and for that, we need tools to learn. This is what this book represents, and in capital letters.

During the last few days, we wake up hearing about Russia starting a war. Same as always, wars are unnecessary, and they end up affecting citizens. Most people want peace, even more after a pandemic in which it seems, we have not learned to be better. Fortunately, I am immersed in the world of books, which always teach you, and I wish we could understand their messages better.  

This week we are going to talk about a middle grade from Gabriel Garcia de Oro: Yo, Raquel Pris: ¡Mi robot tiene un problema!, has been published in Catalan and Spanish by La Galera. Our main character is a very normal girl living in 2058: she attends school, has homework to do, but she is upset because her parents do not approve to have a robot at home. The robots coexist with humans, but in this society, both have doubts about what to do in the future, kind of what happens now to teenagers. In 2058, this uncertainty does not affect the human beings but mostly, the robots. If they do not know their goal in life, their destiny is to end up at the scrap center, a situation Raquel wants to avoid. How can she help her friends? What would happen if humans went through something like that? This is a fun story with a brave and supportive protagonist.