By the end of the civil war, Barcelona was on its knees, the people starving and the city decimated; and yet in little over fifty years, the city would host one of the greatest Olympic games of the modern era. Inspired by the song by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe, the final novel of Jeremy Rowe's Barcelona Trilogy, charts the dramatic rise of the city, phoenix-like, from the ashes of war to become an affluent and successful modern city.
Urban terrorism is not new. Barcelona was once a hotbed of intrigue, bombings and shootings. Jordi Vilaro finds love among the constant dangers and the deadly twists of fate. Will the young lovers survive against the onslaught of the fascist forces? Through the early years of the twentieth century in the city, the Vilaro family face the challenges of poverty and violence with fortitude, as the city slides relentlessly towards civil war. Following "The Lions of Catalunya", Jeremy Rowe's new novel "Barcelona Sunset" is full of the richness and perils of life in Barcelona in the 1920's and 30's.
It is commonly assumed that the Counter-Reformation touched Spain only lightly, affecting the religious institutions but not the ordinary Spaniards. Henry Kamen now challenges this view by providing an intimate look at what life was like in one small but distinctive rural Spanish community from the mid-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries. By examining the Catalan village of Mediona as a microcosm of Spanish society, Kamen shows that in fact the Counter Reformation led to powerful changes in the daily lives, beliefs, and customs of the common people of Catalonia and Spain. Kamen portrays the popular culture of Mediona, studying the shifting habits revealed by its administrative reforms during the Counter Reformation; the place of religious belief within the community; the attempts to change popular festivities and celebrations; the far-reaching innovations in marriage and sexuality; the role of the Inquisition and of the Jesuits; the problem of witchcraft, and the impact of books from the expanding presses of France, Italy, and the Netherlands on local language and ideas. Kamen concludes that the Counter Reformation was in some instances liberating rather than repressive in Mediona and the broader Mediterranean society of which it was part. By contemplating popular religion and culture as it was practiced by ordinary citizens, he offers new insights into an epoch normally studied only in the light of great political events, and he presents a wholly original vision of culture and society in Spain's Golden Age.
The Tour de France is a race like no other, so perhaps it's no surprise that it attracts racers like no other. The winner of the second Tour actually came fifth – but the four racers before him were disqualified for cheating. The 1932 champion credits his win with saving him from capture by the Nazis, as the soldiers recognised him from the podium. One of Britain's best cyclists of the modern era only got into European racing by forging an email. Tour de France Champions is a journey to the summit of cycling, looking at those who have taken on the roads and mountains of France to prevail above all others and win cycling's greatest prize. Giles Belbin presents the stories of all those who have claimed the original and greatest Grand Tour, the one race that still transcends the sport of cycling: the Tour de France.
The New York Times bestseller “The Shadow of the Wind is ultimately a love letter to literature, intended for readers as passionate about storytelling as its young hero.” —Entertainment Weekly (Editor's Choice) “One gorgeous read.” —Stephen King Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer’s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author’s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Soon Daniel’s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.
The world's bestselling Grand Prix handbook is back revised and fully updated for the new season. This is the definitive guide to Formula 1 in 2024. A complete examination of all the teams racing this season, every driver and all the tracks featured in the packed Grand Prix calendar. Also including a full review of the 2023 season and a breakdown of the revised rules and regulations for 2024, this indispensable guidebook features last season's drivers' and constructors' world championship results - as well as a fill-in chart for 2024, so each book becomes your own personalised guide to the year's action. Written by bestselling F1 author Bruce Jones and containing dozens of breathtaking photographs and detailed circuit illustrations plus a statistics section highlighting the major records in F1 history, this is the only guide you'll need for the racing action ahead.
Barcelona, like Spain itself, has in recent years attracted the gaze and fascination of the world. Chosen as the host city for the 1992 Summer Olympic Games, the international spotlight will soon focus on this beautiful, two thousand year-old city, furthering Barcelona's hopes for a lasting place on the world stage. But success has never come easily to this Spanish metropolis. Not blessed with a natural port, and checked throughout history by a series of natural disasters and military defeats, Barcelona has struggled hard to become the industrial and commercial first city of Spain, and the biggest urban center on the Mediterranean seaboard. And Barcelona's relationship with the rest of Spain has always been strained by its status as the capital of the separatist Catalonian state. As this comprehensive and vividly written history makes clear, all of Barcelona's fluctuating fortunes are mapped out in its remarkably rich architectural and artistic heritage. While many associate the city with the distinctive, fin-de-siecle signature of the architect Gaudi, Fernandez-Armesto reveals Barcelona's many other faces. Tracing the legacies of the Roman occupation, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the modern age, he illuminates the inherent tension that makes Barcelona one of the most vibrant, beautiful, and misunderstood cities of Western Europe.
The political poster explosion of July 1936 has been highly acclaimed by critics and scholars worldwide. One of the best-known posters of the time, "Freedom!" – which has acquired near cult status – shows a peasant holding a sickle aloft, set against the anarchist red-and-black flag. The artist, Carles Fontserè, was just twenty years old when he joined the revolution along with fellow artists and comrades-in-arms, Josep Alumà, Helios Gómez, Antoni Clavé and many others who appear in this account. In his outstanding memoirs, which are more artistic, political and collective than intimate, Fontserè recounts his upbringing in a petit bourgeois family with Carlist leanings along with his experience in the Barcelona Requeté. His thirst for reading led him to the writings of Tolstoy, which inspired his nascent libertarian ideals culminating in his road-to-Damascus transformation during the heady events of the Nationalist military uprising in Barcelona. Fontserè played a key role in the founding of the Professional Drawing Union in 1936 and went on to draw posters for the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), among other political parties. He served with the International Brigades and, paradoxically, survived several close brushes with death from his own side. His story culminates with the Republican retreat from Barcelona and his escape over the Pyrenees, together with Catalan president Lluís Companys and his cabinet, into exile in France. Fontserè's Memoirs of a Spanish Civil War Artist masterfully combines autobiography and history through the eyes of one of the 20th century's foremost Catalan graphic artists, known worldwide for his Republican propaganda posters. The book of Carles Fontserè's memoirs is not only an excellent translation from Catalan to English, but one central to the history of Catalonia.
Barcelona, with all its illustrious colour and exterior finery, hasn't always been able to curb its darker yearnings. Blame it on a bubbling, repressive concoction made with a pinch of Church, a touch of Crown and a large dose of General Franco to stir up the insides of its very independent and anarchic Catalonian spirit. Repression, vice, immigration - the 14 stories in Barcelona Noir will divert readers' eyes from Barcelona's lively Ramblas and Gaudi spires and open them to the city's tainted side; one that will never appear on any tour.
