Bruno Blog

Usually, I write each week’s blog making it match the release of the novel, but this time I wanted to do it after because it is a special novel for many reasons: First of all, because this novel is based on a previous work of Coia: El mercader, which I am very fond of it and has been one of her best-selling novels to this day; the second reason is that Coia returns to work with the editor who has helped her grow, Ernest Folch; and the third and final reason is that this novel is a powerful story about brave women, Coia Valls’ trademark, which I know will not leave anyone indifferent. This novel will please all readers of this author, and will put Coia’s novels at the top again, as they deserve.

Here is a little taste of the plot: In the middle of the 14th century, Barcelona is still suffering the aftermath of the great plague. During this period of uncertainty, shortly before the implementation of Roman law, a group of women struggle to take charge of the recovery of the city.

Alèxia -a merchant’s daughter-, Romia -a slave-, Genebre -a nun from Sant Pere de les Puel-les-, Caterina -a painter’s apprentice-, Llorença -a glassmaker’s widow-, Marta -a weaver’s daughter- and Sança -a hat-maker-, they all will unite to propose another Barcelona, where hope is possible, to light a new fire that will illuminate the city again. Many, anchored in a world that is coming to an end, will want to extinguish it.

Meanwhile, Alèxia’s brother, Narcís, a disciple of the painter Ferrer Bassa, will try to give meaning to his artistic concerns. He and Caterina will found Casa dels Obradors, a project aimed at giving value to new initiatives based on the abilities of each one of them. Everyone will have a place and will be able to be apprentice and master at the same time.

Fire illuminates, but it also burns and leaves ashes. The ashes contain the memory of what has been and, if they fall in a good shelter, they can be the seed of a new future.

EL LEGADO DE LAS CENIZAS is a deep and inspiring novel, a trademark of the house, which without losing the essence of the author, shows her masterful and careful evolution. Don’t miss out.

This week my recommendation is a book that you can “drink” in one night. Like one of the most fashionable series of this summer: CITAS BARCELONA, which can be seen on TV3 in Catalan and Spanish on the Prime Video platform, this book invites you to a date in each chapter, where Meritxell Falgueras teaches us that good wine, like all its nuances, is like life itself and its chiaroscuros.

The Catalonia of the gastronomic avant-garde in 2010 is the scenario that the international sommelier Meritxell Falgueras recovers to undertake this exciting journey through the senses in first person, accompanied by a cast of unique characters, lovers of good food and the most secret passions. With a casual, glamorous and lively style —and a rich variety of wine references—, Meritxell Falgueras is determined to eat the world and to accompany it with the best wines. Cátame is a quick book with which you can cry and laugh at the same time, as well as learn about the variety of wines to accompany each date in your life.

When I discovered Mara Jiménez on social networks, I loved her spontaneity and how she told her life without any concealment on social networks. Many of the things she explained felt like she was talking about me, because I always suffered from weight problems, which were a torment in my adolescence. Mara, with her story, reminded me how bad I had it and how good it would have been to have a book like hers to give me a hand when I needed it most. It would have been my lifeline. The book is alive and I am aware that it is helping many people, which was Mara’s goal, but we all want to ask Mara one more question: “How do I do it, where do I start?”. In her second book, MORE ME THAN EVER, she tries to answer us by explaining everything she knows, what she has used and is using to walk the path to herself, how she has learned to love herself. A map, a road map to guide you to your inner self and to always find your light in spite of any darkness. Liking yourself is not easy, and not only fat people suffer from this, but we have always been the target of many. And the thing is not to be fat or skinny, but to accept and love yourself as you are.

Mara gets naked in her books and tries to normalize fatness, which should already be normalized, according to my point of view, and that is not the same as encouraging it. I think this is very clear, even though some people want to manipulate it. She tries, always from love, to give tools to people who want to listen to her and who, in addition, are already fans of a person like her. As I said, it would have been great for me to have Mara in my life, and I am happy to have her in the agency, because she is a brave, altruistic person and a necessary loudspeaker so that people who live in the shadows, suffering, can see a little light. Thank you, Mara, for your sincerity, honesty and sympathy, and for sharing your experience in such a clear and beautiful way in these two books.

In a society that keeps us constantly distracted through social networks, where we are always moving from one place to another, just surfing the web, people suffer more because they do not know themselves. In this society of haste, where pain is avoided, more pain is generated. In Europe, one in three adults has developed anxiety or depression during the pandemic, and among young people, one in two.

That is why books like TU CEREBRO EMOCIONAL are so necessary.

The word “emotion” comes from the Latin emovere, which means to move outward, to shake, to transport, to make the soul vibrate. Emotion drives us and makes us take action. Today we know that the heart has more than 40,000 neurons and a two-meter magnetic field that comes into contact with the magnetic field of another person’s heart. If they vibrate together, you can feel it, and if something goes wrong, it lets you know. So the heart and emotions are intelligent. You could say they are our first brain, despite what Descartes says.

Emotions are like compasses in our lives. They always help us to go in the right direction, if we are willing to listen to them. With this book you will learn to go where your emotions take you; you will start a journey in which your emotions will be your guiding lights, the compasses to achieve physical and mental well-being. Life alternates between easy and difficult times, but when you have a compass to guide you, the journey can be easier, lighter and more satisfying.

One of my favorite movies is Inside Out, and in an interview on Instagram that I saw this weekend, Marin Rojas Estapé recommends it to have a better understanding of our emotions, which is what psychologist Monia Presta also aims to do with her book TU CEREBRO EMOCIONAL.

Monia explains that emotions are neither negative nor positive. They are simply there. In this book, she introduces you to the way they work and shows you that they are your allies. If you accept them, they will guide you to make the right decisions.

With her Strategic Integrative Therapy (the TIE method, by its acronym in Spanish) the author provides you with psychological tools and practical psychophysical exercises to understand your emotions and feel them naturally. As she makes changes in her life, she shows you how her patients evolve and achieve psychophysical well-being. Discover how your emotional brain works at a neuroscientific level, and how to manage your emotions to transform your life and become a happy, free and empowered person.

Lately all news are about Artificial Intelligence, and almost all of them are preceded by a warning message, a message of fear towards these technological advances, and thousands of questions are opened to us. Humanity has always been fearful of the unknown, and Artificial Intelligence is a complex science, which seems to us more like magic than anything else, but it is still science, and if we know how to understand it, it can provide us with very constructive tools for this changing society in which we live. For this reason, we have been fortunate to be able to be pioneers again and represent the first young adult’s novel about ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, as we did with the trilogy of Sonia Fernández Vidal, La puerta de los tres cerrojos, which has sold more than 1,000,000 copies, has been translated into 13 languages, and was the first to bring quantum physics to young people, and also not so young.

With MIA’S DREAM we want to approach Artificial Intelligence, give answers to these questions that we all ask ourselves and stop being afraid of it. The philosopher’s stone is in education and the way we give tools to young people to assimilate these changes for the future, which is just around the corner, or rather, it is already here. This novel, MIA’S DREAM, is one of the best tools to understand Artificial Intelligence and how we must allow ourselves to be taught in order to move forward.

This novel of adventures, virtual worlds, avatars, robots, friendship, self-improvement and hope is starred by a group of teenagers fascinated by the digital world but, at the same time, very connected to the real world and the problems that their generation will have to face.

Through their adventures, the reader will learn the meaning of a vector, an algorithm, an artificial neural network and deep learning. The reader will also discover how AI systems are trained to learn how to execute their tasks, how the results of this training are evaluated and how errors are adjusted until an operational application is achieved. And if you still find the wonders of AI fascinating, but not magical or dangerous at the end of the reading… then the authors will have achieved their goal: algorithms are neither good nor bad, they are just a reflection of the humans who program and use them.

As Ada Lamarr, one of the characters in the novel, director of the prestigious AI lab called Exya, says when she addresses her students:

“AI is not the answer to all our problems. Nor is it the threat that many believe it to be (…) Like all scientific advances, AI is neither good nor bad itself. The determining factor is what we, the humans behind the machines, decide to do with them.”

Or as Laura, one of the young characters, who dreams of a future where the digital world and the real one coexist in complete harmony, without canceling each other out, but on the contrary, empowering each other. She says:

“The world of the future will be built on a balance of power between the human being and the algorithm.”

AGI, an Artificial Intelligence she has befriended, replies to this statement:

“But that won’t happen until you humans find the middle ground between absolute distrust and blind faith towards machines.”

A vital balance for these two worlds to help each other and together add up.

The farewell message from Mia, the artificial superintelligence of this novel, says it all:

“I do not exist yet. I am but a projection of your dreams, of your deepest desires. But also of your fears, of your doubts, of all your unanswered questions (…)

Jan Sendra and Laura Madán, come back home. Share everything you have learned. Build bridges between the two worlds. Sow the hope of a better world. And when humanity has traveled the necessary path… you will know that the time has come for me to wake up again.”

After reading this blog, I am sure that we will be showered with requests to read this juvenile novel that lays the foundations of Artificial Intelligence, in an entertaining and simple way and, therefore, not outdated. It is the first step into a world from which you will not want to leave and you will realize that the important thing is to understand it.