Bruno Blog

Writing this blog post makes me very happy for three reasons. The first is that Laia Perearnau, a new author of the agency, and, therefore, a new voice, wins a prestigious award such as the Nèstor Luján, a prize par excellence for historical novels. The second reason is the fact of having received a literary award, since as an agency we are always excited about it. The last reason is that the story in Francesca de Barcelona has a brutal hook, and my intuition tells me that it will bring us much joy.

Barcelona, year 1382. Francesca is a fifteen-year-old Christian girl who helps her grandmother, Bonanada, who works as a midwife. Her grandmother teaches her the secrets of the trade and introduces her to the world of healing plants, but that is not enough for the protagonist. Although she lives in a very humble environment, she is determined to become a doctor and a surgeon. There is only one problem: this profession is exclusively for men and making a place for herself is almost impossible.

Thanks to her profession as a midwife, she often visits Callo (the Jewish quarters of the city). There she meets Astruc, a Jewish boy who comes from a family of doctors and wants to study medicine. The two will come to an agreement to share their knowledge: Francesca will teach him everything she knows about plants and he will give her access to his books. But medicine is not Francesca’s only passion: she is in love with Martí, her childhood friend, and this love will mark the transition into adult life, which will be full of obstacles, love, betrayal and passion.

Based on a true story and with an absolutely dazzling narration, Francesca de Barcelona skillfully takes us into 14th century Barcelona, a time when diseases were wreaking havoc among the population. In this novel, Laia Perearnau creates a moving account of the life of an extraordinary woman, full of determination, who fought tirelessly against the limits imposed on women of her time.

I think it is an ideal novel to read this summer and be very satisfied, because we already know the success of medieval times, the city of Barcelona and a brave woman as a protagonist, who really existed. For lovers of historical novels, Francesca de Barcelona will be a cocktail in which no ingredient is missing.

I have known Nadia for many years. I still remember when she joined the agency, with a certain distrust, but with a clean and brave look. Since then, we have worked and been through a lot together. I can say that Nadia is a special author for me. I admire her for her courage, for the way she loves her people and her Catalan parents, for how she appreciates Catalonia, that welcomed her, and for how she has never stopped fighting for what she believes in, for the women, for her people, and for peace. This book is a brutal account of what she thinks and what she has done and wants to do in order not to throw in the towel even if the world has gone backwards; even if her country is once again under Taliban power; even if it seems that everything she has achieved has been useless.

Dreaming of peace begins in August 2021. Afghan narrator and activist Nadia Ghulam, seeing the Taliban advancing in Afghanistan, begins to move desperately to help her own people. These pages were born after conversations between Nadia and journalist Ariadna Oltra, in which they talked about how she and her family have lived this last year, what she had to do to bring part of her family to Spain and what those who have not been able to leave Kabul are experiencing. The story of a few, and yet, the reality of thousands of Afghan families and other places in the world.

That same month of August, the media bombarded us with shocking images of men falling out planes as they desperately tried to flee the occupation. Months later, no one is talking about it, nor about those who were able to flee and who have been welcomed in different parts of the world. Nadia’s voice is the voice of all of those people. That Afghan girl who pretended to be a boy for ten years to have the rights she was denied as a woman, has been living in Barcelona for sixteen years. Her life goal and that of these pages is to help the women of her country so that they can continue their studies and become “agents for peace”, to expand in occupied Afghanistan.

Thank you, Nadia: for not losing hope and for continuing to fight against everything and everyone. Unfortunately, the world we live in is not as many of us would like it to be, but there are people like you who always make it better.

This year at the London Book Fair there was a clear trend. Publishers everywhere were looking for rom-coms, which have been around forever and have finally achieved a high place among literary trends, and deservedly so. Fantasy is also making a strong comeback, but all publishers agreed that the non-fiction genre has taken hold and is growing exponentially. For this reason, I would like to recommend Prosperidad, Lola Sorribes’ newest book. Sorribes is a renowned therapist with over thirty years of experience who has always been interested in discovering the secret codes behind the materialization of abundance.

After years of practice and research, she managed to uncover the secret of abundance through what she calls the Seven Powers, a concept which she explains and develops in this manual of true prosperity. This book contains the keys to access a wonderful “spiritual wifi” and to achieve abundance in your life. Reading this book will feel like caressing your soul. You will be able to benefit from its divine information, which will activate your consciousness and guide you on your inner journey towards a more prosperous life. Through the Seven Powers and a very useful series of practical exercises to obtain results in the shortest time possible, you will be able to enjoy the blessings that will mark a before and after in your life. This will turn you into an abundant and immensely happy person.

I know that there are people who do not believe in this type of philosophy of life, but Lola gives us real examples and simple exercises, which are easy to put into practice. You’ll never know if you never try, and you will be able to see very substantial changes in your life. We are not only talking about economics here. Prosperity also means wealth and personal well-being.

I recommend reading this book and using it as the powerful tool it is: you can discover how to be prosperous in everything in life, and therefore live fully. That is the goal of most human beings, or at least it should be, because as the song goes: YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE.

This week I’m talking about a book that has touched my soul because I felt many times like Mara. I have never been thin, and I was a fat person who did not accept herself. I didn’t know how to dress to go to the fair in Frankfurt to sell rights from our books because I couldn’t find clothes in my size, and the ones I did find were really terrible. Luckily, nowadays, this has changed a bit, but in my teens it was a real problem (or for me it was at tha time) and the same anxiety I suffered, made me eat more and more.

Mara’s book is honest because she explains her truth, what she suffered and the consequences that led her to have zero self-esteem. However, this is a positive book because, just like the phoenix she rose again, healed and found light in a dark world. In Acepta y vuela, Mara Jimenez (also known as @croquetamente__) explains how she went from hating herself to loving herself beyond measure and that accepting herself was the first step towards her freedom. Many of you are surely already following heron social media, where she has that charisma, good humor and speaks loud and clear, with more than 386,000 followers, but reading her is such a pleasure that I can’t stop recommending you this book: you will empathize with her voice, which is totally hers. We were surprised by Mara’s talent in writing, as it is one thing to talk, which is also a gift, and the other one is to put those feelings on paper and to be able, with words, to help many people to accept themselves and to be happy. Thank you, Mara, for sharing it so beautifully and, hopefully, many people will fly with you. A book like yours would have helped me many years ago, that’s why I think it is important that it reaches as many people as possible because we are no longer talking about being fat or skinny, but about loving yourself, accepting yourself and learning to live without depending on what others think. A great lesson of life and love.

I have never agreed with the headline of this blog, because I have always preferred to be accompanied and surrounded by my loved ones. I have always been quite dependent and loneliness scared me, but as time has gone by, I have learned that learning to enjoy solitude is a precious commodity, and that doing so is a luxury.

We all need moments to be alone, with ourselves, and the cliché that those who are alone do not enjoy life must be banished. This book invites you to take control of your destiny without making it depend on anything other than your decisions and choices. The key is solosofía, the art of feeling fulfilled alone, celebrate the choice of owning your time and your space!

Live in connection with your essence, in line with your principles and values, your needs and your feelings, respecting and caring for yourself with kindness and affection. To develop the art of solosofía you must learn to live in the present, and to do so with all five senses. Nika Vázquez accompanies you in this process in which you will learn that being alone is not the same as feeling alone, on the contrary: it can be the key to happiness. I vote for being a SOLÓSOFA. How about you?