Bruno Blog

We are saying goodbye to 2020, a terrible year, which began with a family loss that affected us all in an enormous way; my mother-in-law, Gerard’s grandmother, whom we had to say goodbye to before she was put to sleep forever. I will never forget that goodbye between grandmother and grandson, it is tattooed on my heart, and I still cry every time I remember it. We were losing someone important, after a difficult year of a long illness and knowing that it was coming to an end. A hard time was over, and we were left with the pain, which gradually turned into a memory, a memory that still hurts, at least for me. With the end of a painful stage, for her and for us, it seemed that we could recover normality in a short time, but that period lasted only a few weeks, because with March came the pandemic, this terrible time that we are still living through and that changed our lives completely.

For all these reasons I would have wiped this 2020 off the map, if not because it has been a time of learning for a society that was and is still sick. We have realized that the urgent is not the important thing, that the small, everyday things are the most valuable, that hugs, kisses and relationships with people are more necessary than we think, in short, that we need each other. That’s why I wouldn’t erase this cursed year altogether and I hope that we’ve all been left with something positive from a terrible 2020, which will make us more good-hearted people, or so I hope.

Books have helped us more than ever and for this reason I would like to end this last blog of the year by thanking the publishers, booksellers, distributors, readers and all of us who are a part of the book chain, who have not stopped believing that books can do anything, and who have continued to work and fight for culture. It has not been and it will not be easy, but the stories have kept us alive, the essays have given us alternative ways of facing up moments that we never expected to live, and we have reinvented ourselves with technology, allying ourselves with it and seeing that they are two compatible worlds, not rivals, where together they add up. We have seen this clearly with our great best-seller, IKIGAI by Francesc Miralles and Hèctor Garcia, which after being translated into 60 languages and being number 1 in sales in many countries, the authors have now decided to create the course IKIGAI: descubre y potencia tu propósito vital en 8 semanas to give one more tool to those readers who want to see and live in this new world that is presented to us in the best way possible. I recommend it with the same passion with which I recommend the book, because after a year like this, we all have questions that seem to have no answer: What is my mission in this world? How can I strengthen my talent to try to live from what I love the most? How can I make my vital purpose the center of my existence? The answer to all these questions is what the Japanese call IKIGAI, and in this course you can find them in the hands of these two authors. Here is the link to register: https://t.co/8NbdtFPm6h?amp=1

I wish that 2021 will be a year full of health, recovery and finding oneself again, where the pause and reflection of 2020 has made us think and decide that we can be happy in our daily lives, because happiness does not stop being the small daily moments of joy. Let’s go for them without thinking too much, because we deserve it. 

Happy 2021!

2020 is coming to an end and it has been a strange and difficult year, as we would never have imagined. We have not been able to attend the book fairs, we have had to give up meetings and the handshakes and hugs. However, it has been a year of learning for everyone. We have learned to value the little things, to take advantage of every moment, to recognize the importance of contact with others and how necessary it is for our mental health to be able to be with our beloved ones whenever we want. So, let us close 2020 without forgetting this learning and let us look at 2021 from that new perspective, asking it to give us back the hidden smiles, the forbidden hugs, and that normality we miss so much. The agency will be closed from December 24th to January 7th, both included, to take a well-deserved rest and recover energy, which will be necessary to face 2021.

Merry Christmas and we wish you all have a healthy 2021, where books are present, because they have proved to be great companions in every moment, in good and bad times, and have also managed to survive wars and pandemics. Choose well your masks, we have already done it, you can find them in all the networks with the following hashtag: #MYMASKISABOOK.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! 

I used to love my city. It was a cheerful city, full of light and people, modern, cosmopolitan and for me, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but on March 13th everything fell silent. A virus arrived and forced us to stay at home, putting the city to sleep. During those months, the trees grew, there was less pollution, the birds made the city their own and approached the balconies without fear, perhaps to accompany us in that lack of flight and freedom that all humans had. The virus grew and became the king of the city, cultivating fear among the citizens, taking away the older ones without mercy and nullifying the affection, the smiles, turning the weakest into subjects of that fear that paralyzes and limits us.

Now the city is sad, the stores are closed, the hotels are without light, and many citizens have become icy robots who prefer to stay at home, not to see their own people, not to touch, and in short, not to give. All with the flag of prevention, which we must be clear, but in reality, it is fear that dominates us. Fear is the King and sadness its Queen, and our Barcelona is getting greyer every day. Personally, I feel disoriented, I do not like this city or those who have taken over from us. Without being able to flee far from this reality, because we are not allowed to travel anywhere, my escape route has become books again, because they make me believe in magic, in the fact that there are always intermediate paths where nothing is black or white, that grey can exist and that we can change what we do not like.

The heroes of literature help us see that nothing is impossible. I would love to have Harry Potter’s magic wand to improve the world in a minute, or to be like Alice, the protagonist of Lewis Carroll’s book, a polite, educated, well-dressed girl… in short, the perfect little girl of the Victorian England. But her curiosity and skepticism make authority figures take her to magical worlds full of, as the title of the book itself indicates, wonders. I would also like to be like the aviator who wants to think like a child again, or like the rose that challenges the tigers, in a work like The Little Prince where every sentence is a learning experience and the most important thing is today and not what will happen tomorrow. In each book we find our hero who surely would help us to give us advice to fight this hard moment that nobody would have thought to live. That is why fiction is one of the best resources to escape from a reality that today I find difficult to accept. In the agency we have had novels like EL BRINDIS DE MARGARITA by Ana Alcolea or LA MAESTRA DE SOCARTES by Laura Mas, with female heroines who did not live easy moments either but managed to fight and overcome them. While Margarita travels through the personal gaps left by the deaths of her family and learns to live in a Spain in full transition, Diotima will open the way to Socrates, proving her worth as a philosopher and saving Athens from the Plague. Two examples of women who knew how to overcome their situations and move forward.

And finally, I would like to recommend a novel to all of us who miss that active Barcelona that has now fallen asleep. Jordi Solé, with his novel EL TIGRE Y LA DUQUESA, tints it with intrigue, action and danger so that we can walk its streets with adrenaline from our home and try to solve with him in its pages a crime produced in our city by a real gang, The Pink Panters.

It will be a different Christmas, and that cannot be changed, but if we choose a book as a companion in this strange time, I am sure that it will become a lighthouse to get to see a better horizon.

Merry Strange Christmas and let us hope that in 2021 we can have a normal life again, so that we can continue sharing the best stories through books.

Following up with my last blog and considering that I do not want to be Mr. Scrooge, I am trying to recover the joy of this different Christmas, and one of the ways I have found to do it is by thinking about the joy of the little ones. They still see the world through a lenses in which we cannot hide, that make up reality, and therefore they have not lost the desire to smile, despite the masks, or to hug or kiss their loved ones, and the illusion of Christmas and Santa Claus. They have awoken something in me: the desire to experience this Christmas 2020 in the best way possible and to keep alive the illusion of being able to join each other and come together, even if we need to be separated and we cannot celebrate it as usual but knowing that this will pass and that we will recover the traditions. This is a parenthesis in our lives that has to serve us to appreciate what we have, when we have it, because now that we lack it, we know why we miss it and this is what should make us reflect.

So today the recommendations are for the little ones, and not so little of the house, because a book does not cease to be one of the best gifts that can be made, and in this 2020, I believe this applies more than ever, when reinventing yourself or starting adventures in fantastic worlds are among the best things that can happen to us.

To share with the little ones of the house: There are three books in the agency that fascinate me LA VUELTA AL AÑO EN 365 CUENTOS by Gabriel García del Oro and Puri Hernández, CUENTOS PARA NIÑOS FELICES by Francesc Miralles and Álex Rovira and SERES FANTÁSTICOS by Ana Alcolea: All three are for parents or grandparents to share with the little ones the stories in those special moments of the day, like, for example, before going to bed or that Sunday afternoon we stayed at home. Ideal moments to relax, to go into an adventure and to talk, to express ourselves. Talking with the little ones makes us grow, and sometimes we don’t take the time to do it because we believe that if someone in the house needs to talk, they will come and ask to speak, and that is difficult. Dialogue is necessary to know what each one feels or needs, and these readings are the perfect excuse. Warm and fantastic stories that will help us to strengthen this bond, which is so difficult for some of us, and so necessary for all of us.

For the middle-grade ones: This complicated age group, that perhaps likes screens more than books, is very faithful to a series when they stick to it and fall in love with the stories, because they still don’t have an iPad or a cell phone all day long within reach. It is the ideal moment so that they do not give up on the reading. For them we recommend LA PUERTA DE LOS TRES CERROJOS, which takes us into the world of quantum physics, which we have already proven that it is a branch in science that they love. They are attracted to this series by what seems inexplicable and because with these adventures Sonia Fernandez-Vidal gives them meaning. Rick Riordan’s trilogies, a bestseller, they take us into mythology and its worlds. PERCY JACKSON, already a classic, or THE HEROES OF OLYMPUS are a sure bet for fantasy lovers, and SPLENDIDA by Sacha Azcona, which invites us to the fantastic adventure of its protagonist with great skill and tells us why children do not like vegetables.

For those already in their teens: LOS CINCO CONTINENTES DEL AMOR, a different, funny and current love story that has a lot of appeal, with two top authors behind it, Francesc Miralles and Javier Ruescas. Discover what kind of lover you are together with the main character of this novel that, along with an atlas of love, will explain the importance of loving and being loved.

For all audiences: A SON and A SECRET by Alejandro Palomas. Two wonderful works that both young and older people like. Guille’s world is as real as it is magical, and for this reason Palomas has managed to hook two audiences by dealing with hard themes through the eyes of a very special child who, in spite of everything, does not lose his illusion. So for those who, like me, find this Christmas different and difficult to digest, I encourage them to think about the illusion of others, young or old, and I am sure that in this way we will recover a part of that Christmas spirit that takes away from us a sad reality, but that we cannot change, we can only accept it and think that everything will be fine and better in the end.

The streets have already been lit with Christmas lights. Last weekend was supposed to be a shopping weekend, to take advantage of the Black Friday offers, that is, the beginning of the Christmas campaign, which is going to be different, whether we want it to be or not. I went out to try to imbibe that spirit that every year encourages me, creates butterflies in my stomach, and makes me feel happy, but I didn’t succeed. Walking through the illuminated streets, with people without smiles, I was not able to feel the Christmas’ spirit. Those lights that had always cheered me up, were now black and white, as if it were impossible for me to get out of a foggy loop I had been anchored in since March 13th, trying to get my head out every now and then. Had I suddenly become Mr. Scrooge? Dickens’s Christmas Carol has always been one of my favorite’s stories, and I could never understand why anyone wouldn’t like Christmas, and helping others, giving and sharing. However, this 2020 is being a hard year for the whole world, a year which makes us fight to be alive, in all senses, firstly not to fall ill, and secondly not to have our heart and soul die. I have the feeling that there is no time to think about happiness and that we are surviving, not living.
 
What I find most difficult is to keep my heart beating for emotions that I cannot express, and to keep my soul active so that it does not become a grey soul like Mr.Scrooge’s, but in another sense, since he was a selfish miser, whose eyes were opened by the ghosts of the past, present and future so that he would have the opportunity to change. But this cursed virus, which fights to take away our emotions, is leaving me breathless and unwilling, turning me into a person I do not recognize, sadder, and even if the ghosts come to my rescue to try to make me understand that the most important thing is the present, that the past has already happened and that the future is uncertain and uncontrollable, that lack of feeling, of approach and of affection with others, is taking its toll on me. Now I know that my vitamins to face the world with joy are love, affection, and being able to express it to those who I love the most. For this reason, in this blog I am going to recommend you the books that have helped me and that are helping me in these moments where life has become like a black and white movie.
 
LA LIBERTAD INTEIROR by Gaspar Hernández and LA SIETE LLAVES by Álex Rovira and Fernando Trias de Bes, which deal with the same subject from different perspectives, FREEDOM. Gaspar explains how to find THE INNER FREEDOM and that only by finding it we can be happy, and Àlex explains the seven important steps to achieve the vital freedom, which is the same concept, and for this reason I emphasize the importance of knowing what is the inner or vital freedom and how to get it.
 
WABISABI FOR EVERYDAY LIFE by Nobuo Suzuki is another book that has made me think, because knowing that there is a wise culture, like the Japanese, that endorses the beauty of the imperfect, encourages me to overcome that having the feeling of being imperfect so many times, makes sense.
 
TIME MINDFULNESS and MONEY MINDFULNESS by Cristina Benito, are two books that have changed my view on how to approach the issue of money, which now more than ever is one of the issues that concerns more than one, and the issue of time, which flies by, almost unnoticed, and although we have clear the theory that the urgent should not pass before the important, to apply it is another story. Two short but intense books that help you with these two vital issues, today and always.
 
RECONECTA CON TU CUERPO by Anna Sólyom has been an essential guide to understand my body’s demands and how to find meaning in those calls so I can act according to my emotions and do what my body needs to feel better.
 
And the last book that I would recommend, if you are one of the few that have not read it yet, is our international bestseller, already a classic, which is IKIGAI, by Francesc Miralles and Héctor García, because finding the true meaning to this life today is more important than ever, since most of the times we get up, and even more in this current situation many of us ask ourselves: why? Finding a reason to get up every morning is enough to want to follow the path of life, even if there are several stones to overcome on the way.