Bruno Blog

It’s been a while since I’ve realised time flies. We get older, and I see how the number of divorces amongst the different groups of friends I have keeps getting bigger and bigger. It’s not good nor bad, it is simply a fact that makes me wonder whether a lifelong love story with someone is possible.

I believe there are different ways to love and there is no precise mathematical formula to know what is it that works, since I think each couple has its own way, but, reading Victor Alexander’s ELS AMANTS DE LA RAMBLA DEL CELLER  I’ve not been able to restrain myself of thinking about those old couples whom have been together their whole entire lives sharing everything. And I wonder whether LOVE, written in capitals, keeps getting bigger as a snow bubble, or whether it shifts with every step we take towards that thing we want it to be. Life as a couple is a whole world, and this novel is a solid basement to be able to face a century of life and of history greatly told by the author, knowledgeable of it, and who brings back the reader together with the rest of characters, all that happened.

Maria and Joan walk their ninety years through the Celler’s Rambla, slowly, as two lovebirds would do, observing today’s world go by, so distant from theirs, and so hostile, that it’s already falling on them without mercy, like a vulture looking for carrion. Niel, a neighbor of theirs, watches them, alerted by their kindness and vulnerability; he’s a man that, as the old lovers of the Celler’s Rambla, carries a past where pain and joy intertwine, uncontrolled, from his teenage years in Paris and an eternal unhappy love for Judit, his second wife, victim to a life full of infamy. Maria, who everyone calls Marieta, Joan has experienced a century full of war, oppression, silences, harassment…but they’ve made the time and have found strength to love their family, the theatre, opera, cinema…this life that, right when it’s reaching its end, seems to want to eliminate them before their time. ELS AMANTS DE LA RAMBLA DEL CELLER is an extraordinary story that contrasts tenderness to cruelness, and where it is shown, without any filter, the current extortions of real-estate mobbing, and it is a criticism to sexual abuses to minors.

A vignette postcard that I, personally, like, and that makes me get goosebumps by wondering if we can actually feed love and make it grow as a limitless snow bubble, but which has to, every now and then, slow down in order to keep growing.

Yesterday I was enthralled by a baby that had curly blond hair and wouldn’t stop moving while his mother tried to feed him breakfast -without him falling off the chair. He watched and smiled, with that angelical face that would make anyone drool. Watching him made me think about how fast motherhood passes and how little I enjoyed it. Now, my son is almost thirteen years old and I will never relive that first stage, which I must confess -and because I wasn’t able to enjoy it-, I lived it poorly. I’m 90% certain that I wouldn’t like to relive it even if I could. But there’s that 10% that, if it knew what I know now, thinks that maybe I would have done things differently and I would have enjoyed that stage in a calmer, quieter way. The consequences would be different, most certainly, and maybe I would have even repeated.

As everything in this life, if you do what comes from your heart and you want to live everything fully, because you wish to do so, everything falls into place. Therefore, my advice to future mothers would be to live it fully from the first moment, without worrying about work, organization or fears. It’s a stage that, if you live it calmly and doing what you believe, I’m convinced it must be wonderful.

Dr.Eduard Estivill’s book SER MAMÁ: EL ANTES Y EL DESPUÉS (‘Being a mum: the before and after’), written along with Dr.Gonzalo Pin and Dr.Carlos Salvador, helps you prepare the months after giving birth, which usually are less dealt with. For me, they were the most difficult ones, because you have a tiny little person that depends on you that doesn’t come with an instruction guide, unluckily. At the same time, you, as a woman, live such physical and emotional changes that you must deal with while you learn from scratch how to take care of the thing you love most; your kid.

That’s a challenge for anyone, and because society isn’t really that helpful nowadays, we have to be superheroes to do everything right. Or assume that we aren’t, that not everything can be done perfectly, and choose what is truly important to prioritize it. That’s another difficult -but not impossible- challenge, as long as you know what you stand up for and you fight for it. To sum it up, this is a useful, practical book, and another tool to feel less alone in a situation that, at the beginning, can feel like way too much, but that if you handle it right and you follow common sense, you’ll only remember afterwards the laughter and the good times.

Animals are beings that often accompany us in our vital adventure or that, just when seeing us, they flee. Those who share a house with us are not only spectators of what happen to us, but important characters in our stories. We give them a name, we feed them, we pat their fur and they, in their own way, reciprocate it. But human beings are able to lose the reason that differentiates us from them. Maria Barbal explores human and animal relationships. The company, the rapport, the observation, the fear and the love. A compilation of stories with a quick and clever style, sensitive, that makes for a really particular book of great beauty.

Ser mamá: el antes y el después. Guide for a happy motherhood

Ser mamá: el antes y el después is the essential guide to live pregnancy before and after giving birth, with peace of mind and trust.

Being a mother is a deeply changing experience in a woman’s life, but it comes with a lot of questions and doubts. All of them are answered and solved in a practical way in this book, centered around the 100 days before and 100 days after giving birth. Based in her huge professional experience, doctor Eduard Estivill, along with the collaboration of gynecologist Carlos Salvador and pediatrician Gonzalo Pin, have put together key advices for the most critical days of pregnancy and postpartum.

With Ser mamá: el antes y el después, future mom will learn, among many other things:
-How to relieve sleep’s problems in the months before giving birth.
-Food advice for this vital period.
-Slow workout exercises to prepare her body.
-How to deal without fear the days after giving birth.
-How baby’s sleep affects the mother’s rhythm.
-Where is best for the kid to sleep.
-Importance and duration of breastfeeding.

Live your maternity with brightness with doctor Estivill’s help.

Despite his great talent, Mauro Santos hasn’t got any editor to publish him. Frustrated, he accepts an agreement with Germán Latorre, a famous television presenter who turns everything he touches into gold. The deal is that Mauro has to sell him two novels already written – and previously rejected by several publishers – and has to write two more books for him, thus becoming his ‘ghost writer’.

Under Germán’s signature and name, Mauro’s works become international best sellers, with millions of sales worldwide, dozens of translations and a great feedback from critics and the media.

Then, in the television channel where Germán Latorre works, they decide to launch a new program, a talent show to discover new writers. Mauro Santos thinks of this program as the only opportunity to restart his literary career and start believeing in himself once again. But in order to do this, he has to make a decision that will turn his whole life upside down: he must stop writing for Germán Latorre.