Bruno Blog

The Catalans know very well who Lluís Companys was and his history. I don’t know if the rest of the world knows who he was, but I think that this is why the novel by Victor Gay Zaragoza, EL DEFENSOR (published in Catalan by Planeta and Castilian by Penguin Random House) makes so much sense. It is the story of Lluís Companys, but seen through the eyes of the lawyer who was appointed by Franco’s dictatorship to defend him. The lawyer was Ramon de Colubí, a young and inexperienced lawyer who had fought in the national side, and he vas given a defense with a prescribed script. The trial was a mere formality, and the regime already knew how it would end before it started, but the young lawyer rebelled against the role assigned, risking his career and even his life. He fought for justice. His work ethic was more important than many other things: power, money, prestige, and even his life. How many would today give up all this for professional ethics? The truth is, I regret to say it, that I think very few. But I loved reading this true story, the story of someone who was able to set aside his own interests in favor of justice and loyalty to a profession.

Victor Gay Zaragoza, a distant relative of the lawyer, shows in this novel Lluís Company’s and his defender most human face. They give us a lesson in humanity and common sense to take into account today and forever. A pleasant reading for lovers of the historical novel, but also for those who believe that things well done are still possible, for people that prefer the human side of things, and that thinks that feelings are so much important that they can get to move mountains. It seems a utopia, but Ramon de Colubí did it and I think we can do it too.

“If justice exists, it must be for all, no one can be excluded, otherwise it would not be justice.” Paul Auster

There have always been wars, unfortunately, but in the XXI century we should have learned more. This year is being hard on this aspect. After the end of the Cold War, today’s wars kill and displace people and are even more complicated. The Islamic State captured Iraq and Syria and destroyed part of Gaza. Egypt lives a repression. Libya, Yemen, half of Africa, Ukraine and so many other places. It’s really sad, because we know that conflicts are inevitable among humans, but maybe we should have learned to dialogue and not always end up using weapons, which in my view never fix anything, but only make things worse.

The novel I recommend today is PONT DE CENDRA of Raul Romeva, published by Ara Llibres It talks about the absurdity of war and the power of love. The novel is based on the true story of the lovers of Sarajevo and the experiences of the author, as a testimony to the cruelty of the war in Bosnia. I remember books as Zlata’s Diary that touched me deeply, Zlata’s Diary and PONT DE CENDRA share the feeling of absurdity in war that Raul knows how to reflect perfectly.

PONT DE CENDRA tells the story of Dragana, a ten-year-old living in Bosnia during the war, and explains through her diary the story of her brother and his girlfriend. A couple fighting in this complex framework against war and religious intolerance, and also for their love. This story transcends time and space and merges in an unusual with Natza and his trip to the volcano of the novel JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH by Jules Verne. War, death, identity and conflict link the two stories and the lives of its characters.

Raul has made a thriller and also an adventure novel. That matches with Raul’s previous novels, Retorn to Shambala and Sayonara Sushi, but I think that as a novelist he has taken a step forward knowing how to translate elegantly and closely the importance of feelings.

A novel that gets straight to the heart.

Imagine there’s no countries / It isn’t hard to do / Nothing to kill or die for / And no religion too / Imagine all the people / Living life in peace… /
You may say I’m a dreamer / But I’m not the only one / I hope someday you’ll join us / And the world will be as one

October is the Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Cancer is a disease that is the epidemic of the century. In my environment, I know several people who have fallen in the networks of the disease, we are surrounded by it and we know that affects many people, but when it’s up to your family or close friends, it still affects you more.

We know that every day more people recovers and that attitude is vital to do so, but it gives dread view statistics. So today it is a pleasure for me to recommend the second book by Dr. Odile Fernandez, author of Mis recetas anti cancer, and now publishes GUIA PRÁCTICA PARA UNA ALIMENTACIÓN Y VIDA ANTICÁNCER. Odile, a family physician who beat ovarian cancer metastasis, explains that food can be vital for healing. A real anti cancer Bible that each person can adapt to your individual needs.

Nobody knows how people develop this disease, but we can do things to encourage prevention, or if you are in the process of struggle, promote healing. Why not try?

Odile is a real example and a great person. Like her, there are other examples of extraordinary recoveries, but unfortunately we lost a lot of people struggling on the road. That is why books like this are a huge help for anyone, because we are all exposed to it. “It won’t happen to me” has changed to the question “why am I doing to make it not happen to me?”.

We must be well informed, and this book, more tempers, cuddles and hugs from the people around who have the disease, are a necessary balm. For this reason, our solidarity party this year will be dedicated to helping children with cancer. We will collect everything we can to help the Association AFANOC who is doing great efforts to help families of children with this disease.

Join us in the agency on 10 December to celebrate that literature gives hope.

We can do it!

We are living a complex political situation and things are growing. We cannot ignore what is happening, and here I will not give any personal opinion, but in history have we have lived through many turbulent times and, while we move as individuals, we should advance in how we solve the problems of a country that has gone and is still going through a crisis, a Europe led by a woman, but not out of trouble. Citizens of the world need change, fresh air, as seen in the last municipal elections in Spain. We need to see honest leaders, wanting to make changes and listening to the people who vote them, that should be the purpose of a fair election, where each one exerts its role right.

In a book we can always find references that are with us, as is the case of the new novel by Elena Moya, LA CANDIDATA, which explains how Isabel San Martin stand for president of Spain. Her work as Minister of Economy and some of her initiatives gave her credibility and she is a favorite in the polls. Her referent is Victoria Kent, one of the women who changed the political map of Spain during the Second Republic; she is her main source of inspiration. She wants to win to help citizens, women, but she has to face multiple problems, because there are many interests, and her enemies will not be easy to defeat because almost nobody believes that the country is prepared to have a woman for president.

Isabel is a tribute to all women elected by citizens struggling to defend what is right. These women are still few in the XXI century. And this is an exceptional novel, which shows the spheres of power, and the real meaning of ambition.

A woman always must fight much more than a man to win, to be up for leading, and also the protagonist of this novel must deal, in parallel, with her personal life that is crumbling.

What to do in a time like this? What is more important: power, principles, family or love?

ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED READING, NOW MORE THAN EVER. The novel is recommended by Eduardo Mendoza, which tells us the following: “An intelligent and enjoyable fable than can become truth while reading it. BRIGHT. YOU MUST READ ELENA MOYA “.

With these words of an author like Eduardo Mendoza and backed by the quality and success of Elena Moya, which has been translated in Italy and Brazil, I cannot say more, because everything has already been said. We do not miss this opportunity to meet two brave women, within a novel that catches on each page, and tells their stories, which are already unknown to many of us.

“In every moment of my life there is a woman who holds my hand taking me into the darkness of the reality that only women know better than men. And in which they walk better with less light.” Gabriel García Marquez

Food is a subject that concerns everyone. Parents want our children to eat well, healthy, but sometimes it is so difficult that parents aren’t capable to make it. Women want to eat without getting fat, and men, increasingly, too. But ultimately what concerns us most is health and what we eat is closely related to a healthy living: we are what we eat, and therefore we have to watch a little this in our daily day and try to know what suits us. Of course we can make exceptions, and obviously everyone can choose what seems best for him and for his family. The impositions are never good, whatever color they are, although some seem to think they are.

Trinitat Gilbert has written a book, A LA TAULA I AL LLIT AL PRIMER CRIT, for parents concerned about their children’s eating habits. We are not facing a book on how to get your children to eat, but to eat healthy, consciously, and grow up healthy and with ingrained habits. Without being alarmist, the author proposes that all of us follow guidelines and extend them to our children, but not without being obsessed with the subject. In short, “Worry about what you eat every day and not for what you do one exceptional day.” It is a book to read in one sitting and where you can learn many things, or at least think about them.

The start of the school year is the ideal time to make an attempt to eat better. If we think that there is something that we do better, let’s do it. Because parents are not born knowing everything, and reading good advice is always a good way to learn.

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well” Virginia Woolf