Bruno Blog

This week, the last one of February, this space is focusing on children and young adult literature with a prestigious author: Ana Alcolea. She has published more than thirty titles for children and young adults and has won several prizes, such as the Cervantes Chico in recognition of her literary career. We are in front of a reputed author that this month publishes two novels: one for the little ones, THE NIGHT OF THE RED MOON published by Edebé and THE GIRLS IN THE 305 for the young adult market.

Both stories have the signature of a great author. THE NIGHT OF THE RED MOON is funny, casual, and magical. Which kid has never listened their parents say that their grandmother is a witch? Nonetheless, we think they say it in a metaphoric way. Regarding the grandmother as a witch is used instead of saying that she is evil and cruel. That summer, during the night of the red moon, strange things start to happen at home, and they start suspecting that they grandmother is a real witch, like the ones that can do magic: move things from one place to another and change the order of things. A fun parallelism that will lead to an ideal adventure for those who have already started in the world of reading.

On the other hand, THE GIRLS IN THE 305 is a novel set in the post-war era, during the last years of the dictatorship in Spain, where the historical setting is as important as the story. Six working and peasant girls live in a boarding school far from their homes and see life from a different perspective than the rest of their generation. They are the first women able to study and the know that it is their only change to thrive in life. In the middle of the school year, their teacher suggests staging a Shakespeare play: THE TEMPEST, and the environment in the female boarding school will mix with the social and political reality of the era where the desire for freedom, the exploration of their sexual orientation and first loves will be the main topics that will go along us in this novel full of reality in an era where the world was changing.

I am convinced that this novel will appeal to the young adult public, mostly women, but also their mothers and grandmothers because it is a clear crossover for those who read Edin Blyton, THE TWINS IN SAINT CLARA, I am sure they will fall in love with THE GIRLS IN THE 305.

Ana Alcolea comes back to the market with two novels for the two different fields that she knows best and where she has a lot of followers.

Through history, medicine has always been the science that everyone wants to see evolve because without it, we would not cure a lot of sickness that have appeared and will continue to appear because this has no end. We come from a pandemic where we have lived the importance of having a good health care, good professionals in the field and good scientists, and the importance of taking care of them all, not only when we feel unprotected. Those who work in the medical world is because it is their vocation, same as people who works in the art world, but this does not mean working at any price. Vocation and passion move mountains, but they need taking care of, to keep this nerve that keeps them alive. Coia Valls confirms that this novel is a tribute to those who have taken care of us throughout history.

I believe this is a really important issue to talk about before introducing this special book, the historic novel written by the author Coia Valls. THE ALCHEMY OF LIFE, published in Spanish by Destino and in Catalan by Columna, puts us in the 15^th century when the world was changing but medicine was stagnant in the old formula of the theriac. Nevertheless, there has always been men and women that searched new ways of healing the body and soul, who produced alchemy formulas to achieve the elixir of the eternal life. Often, they were seen as demented, delirious, or mere sorcerers and Magí Surroca is one of them, who searches old formulas to produce remedies. He is an alchemist living in Llívia, where Pau Vinyes also lives, the town doctor. Both arrive to Barcelona in a journey that will be a vital transformation. It is a moment of change, the theocentrism gives way to science.

Beatriu is another main character, she escapes from the convent of Vallbona de les Monge sans tries to get out of this stigmatization of witchery. Only the force of love and friendship and the absolute devotion to an ideal will allow an authentic life of freedom and plenitude. A novel where the characters are not black and white, they are not good or bad; the power of owning of something that heals, makes the best and the worst of each other surface. This book is like life, some people have moral interests and others prioritize the benefits, either the economical or the powersome ones. This leads us to an historic novel full of schemes placed in Llívia, where the most ancient pharmacy preserved in Europa can be found, Vallbona de les Monges, and Barcelona.

A moment of social transformation in the world, where medicine and science are two supports of the plot. The author said that she wrote the novel during the lockdown when the world was rushing to find a cure to COVID -THE ELIXIR-, everyone was scared and had mistrust but at the same time we had hope in science. As always, history repeats itself and looking at the past we can understand better the present.

A great novel, like all the novels that this author has published in her career, with all the ingredients to make the lovers on historic novels fall in love, but with something special in the background that excites me: there were people, and I want to believe that there still are today, with the intention to make the world a little better and give to the common good.

February starts, it is still winter, but I have always liked it, maybe because it is short, and it is always filled with literary novelties. Next week, one of the non-fiction books that I think can be a best-seller will arrive to the bookshops. GENIOTIPO by Tony Estruch.

The author says that everyone has a talent, a gift. Finding out what it is, we could focus our life on the direction we wish for and, therefore, enjoy a lot more what we do and how we do it. LOVING what you do is the secret to accomplish big achievements and for that, it is necessary knowing your passion and which type of genius you are, so you need to know your GENIOTIPO.

After ten years of research on human talent, in collaboration with experts from different disciplines, Tony Estruch presents the revolutionary theory of the GENIOTIPOS, a self-knowledge tool that will be the start of a new era in the personal development field, like ENEAGRAMA was on its day. Here, we take a step forward to develop what we have on the inside. To identify our GENIOTIPO, we need to identify our innate aptitudes, and this book offers us all the keys to discover it. With this, we will learn to develop our capacities to the maximum, and we will not only successfully achieve our purpose of life in the personal and professional fields, but also, we will comprehend better those around us, which I think is vital in this world we face after everything we have lived.

Tony Estruch reveals that we do not need to do especial things to be a genius, we only need to discover and feed what we already are. Our goal in life should be: BE HAPPY. Being passionate in what we dedicate our life, the things we do, our jobs, our hobbies, and the rest of activities that take a great part of our time, this is the key to be able to be happy. If you know your GENIOTIPO, you can open the door to that happiness that you long for and do not know how to find it. A practical and simple tool that opens a new world to us where we can only do well. I am a circle/triangle. How about you?

After the controversy with the new Rigoberta Bandini’s song AY MAMÁ that unfortunately will not represent Spain in Eurovision, I would like to recommend this book that also demands equality for women, we have always had troubles asking for what we wanted, and we have always been givers because of the culture we come from, where women have always been at the service of men. It is complicated to erase this stigma and although we have evolved a lot, it is not sufficient. Women nowadays do a lot, but the politicians cover their faces with their hands because of a feminist song. So maybe we have evolved but our social environment has not.

We do not have to stay silent, and Silvia Bueso invites us to ask for whatever we want and whenever we want, either in the Laboral aspect, the familiar, the sentimental or the personal.

This book is for all audiences, mostly women, because it is a very useful tool to analyse us and think why we always put others petitions first and our petitions stay behind, in that drawer we call “I will do it another time”.

This nonfiction is the passport to the life we long for, an exciting journey to achieve your goals with exercises, questions that will make you think and stories of women, not only successful women, but all kinds of women, that will give you that impulse to make the step and achieve your goals, whichever they are. What do you ask for yourself this 2022? Speak, shout, do it.

I have always had problems with weight, and it hurts a lot. Not liking what you see in the reflection, not knowing what to wear, and see that all your friends or colleagues are thin and eat whatever they want (or at least it is what it seems like) makes you feel like the worst person in the world, whichever your age is. “I AM FAT” is what your little head keeps telling you day and night.

This week, the book that I am presenting by two authors, Anna Sibel and Beatriz Campos, titled THE EMOTIONAL OVERWEIGHT, makes me very happy because it is a very useful tool to stop worrying about this issue that determines the life of so many people. All of us who have felt it this way know that it is a constant fight against the scales and what that entail emotionally. Here is where Anna and Bea give us the key. How do you feel? How are you? These are the questions that you must solve before knowing what to eat and what not to eat.

Obviously, feeding is basic to lose weight; there is no need to mislead ourselves: eating a donut every day will not make us thinner, but sometimes the mind and emotions are almost more important than eating a donut. Also, if I may add, we should not worry just about our weight, being in a healthy weight is also important. I learn this when I decided to have an operation to reduce weight because my overweight was out of control. It was one of the toughest decisions in my life. However, if I had had a tool like this book maybe I could have lost weight listening to my body, with the help not only of nutritionists, but also a psychologist. It is the case for the two people that wrote this book: they do not show us one of those miraculous method that end up not helping, but they give you essential guidelines, so your emotions do not affect your feeding.

This is the secret: maintain the balance; everyone has bad days, for different reasons, and now more than ever with this pandemic that does not let us breath, and the feelings of sadness, nerves, apathy, make that or internal chip goes out of control and most times bring us to comfort ourselves with eating like there is no tomorrow. So, to arrange ourselves, mark our priorities to be able to feel ok again, with both body and mind, is the first step to achieve your goal. In this easy and motivational book, you have the key that will help you put your body ready and achieve health and your goal to get rid of that annoying overweight that makes you lose your smile. It is a highly recommendable lecture in every moment of the year but specially during January, like a personal purpose even more.