Bruno Blog

This week’s blog post is special because, exceptionally, I’m not recommending any book, today I am asking you for a bit of charity. I’m very proud that one of the million ideas that run through  my mind, has finally come true, and today, November the 14^th we are celebrating LA LITERATURA QUE ALIMENTA’s fifth birthday. An idea I had while watching Educos’s advert, one of their first when they were getting popular, and as I have always loved helping, I thought that from the agency we could all join forces and fusion literature and charity, the perfect union. This is how this campaign was born, and thanks to all of those who follow us, our authors, loyal to our proposal to collect money each year for this NGO which strives every day to assure no kid is left without a warm plate a day by getting them food.

This publishing world keeps growing everyday with more and more people joining us, as editors, book sellers, readers, designers, and they help us in making this dream grow, step by step, so that we are able to collect more money and so be able to help those who need it the most. I’m really happy to see we have come a long way and we are not tired, we haven’t surrendered, on the opposite, every time I look more forward to preparing this charity party, and although it is not easy to reunite people, prepare the meeting, the details, and to think about the event, illusion is on top of all of this and seeing the power of this little drop is really worthy it and really does make me happy. It really moves me when I see the unconditional support of my friends, those who belong to the editorial world and those who don’t, to become part of this team, who are trying to help these families who are unable to give their children a warm plate. Although it may seem impossible there are families living under these conditions because, even though we may think economic crisis is over, it is not, and we must take conscience that there is people that do need help.

Life, for me, makes no sense if we don’t give what we have to those we love, those who need it. And it would not make sense if I didn’t Thank those who have helped and supported this little idea, directly coming from my heart, to become true and to become a Literary Party and charity in this literary world. So this afternoon I’m hoping to see many of this year’s T-shirts so that this year we can help more than 400 children. Let’s color this day black and yellow, the colors of our literary charity, to get a new record, and make of 2018 a year full of books that feed souls, that will, for sure, make us be better. Literature not only feeds wit, wisdom and humor, but also gives those who need it the most. LET’S MAKE A TOAST WITH A SMILE ON OUR FACES.

TV series set trends, that is a given, and this year Netflix spoiled us with the TV adaptation of 13 reasons why, which made book sales exponentially rise up . Image always calls the youngest’s attention more easily since they have been born in the digital era, but they get, then, the book, so there is nothing to worry about. One of the TV series that keeps all teenagers in front of the TV each Monday night is ‘‘Merlí’’, broadcasted in Catalan in TV3, with the first season aired also in Spanish in La Sexta. The main idea behind the TV series is to convey philosophical values to teenagers through an irreverent teacher who teaches the toughest and hardest assignment, and, for many, the ‘’crappiest’’ one. However the ‘’mad’’ teacher knows how to explain each philosopher and their philosophy in an original and entertaining manner, and he even explains how what these wise men said can be understood and applied in nowadays world, and prove how those knowledges are not obsolete, but very much the opposite.

Hence why I think the book FILOSOFIA PER TREMPAR by J.R.Casafont can be an easy to read work for all of those who love the TV serie, which is reaching its ending, I think there are only two Mondays left, or maybe one, so the book can be a tool to understand even better why philosophy can help us making decisions every day, getting to know ourselves, and meeting people and establishing better relationships with them, the metaphysical secrets, the boundaries between good and bad in a world like our present world, how to be a spiritual in a material world and all we can come to know and all we can’t.

An interesting and free-and-easy book which, after the massive success of the TV series, should be one of the bestsellers at Christmas time, and forever, since a book with good tips is always a good idea in teenager’s lives and in their parents’, who should also read it. The author believes that philosophy is not difficult, but most of the times it is not well taught. Philosophers were not crazy wise men imprisoned in their own worlds, they were normal people, like you and I, who wanted to enjoy life, but who had problems, like all of us, and the only difference is that maybe they were not scared to say what they thought. Expressing one’s feelings is freedom, according to André Comte-Sponville ‘’The aim of philosophy will almost always be happiness, freedom or truth, or the conjunction of the three: wisdom’’.

We all want to be happy, free and wise, of that I’m sure, so a book like this one should be amongst our shelves, any practical tools to achieve what one desires is a treasure, and if it is in book format, it is even better. Happy reading!

Every year, when Christmas is around the corner, the streets are decorated with fairy lights, shop windows full of Christmas trees, red decorations and pearl white snow I get nostalgic and, at the same time, I get excited to spend Christmas with my family. I cannot deny in my family we thoroughly enjoy these holidays, we’ve always been together, and even though some people are not with us in the dining table anymore, we still know how to enjoy them. I must admit there has been a change, I blame maturity, when you know that magic we adored when we were kids, is not so magical, but it is really nice what we are committed to do in order to maintain that magic and illusion for the younger ones, and even the older ones, who still believe there is something especially magic about Christmas. At the same time you accept some things will change because the family gets bigger and gets smaller almost at the same time. However, it is somehow nice to miss those who are not here anymore, remember them and love them as if they were still here with us, and it is nice to see how we are still growing stronger together, sharing that same illusion with the younger generations and that unity that, hopefully, we will forever keep. Life warns us, we must pay attention to those warnings, and this year, more than ever, we will have an amazing Christmas Holiday, all together.

In contrast, Martín y Marga, the characters in Óscar Rojo’s novel, fifteen and twelve years old, are not able to spend and enjoy the wonderful Christmas Holidays, as many other people. Some people because they do not like the Holidays, and it is their choice therefore it is completely understandable, and other people because they actually can’t, as our two main characters. They are orphan and decide to leave their home town to go to Madrid in order to find and meet their biological father, but when they reach their destination, because of a succession of misfortunes, they are abandoned in the cold winter, with nothing but their company. An indigent shows them how to survive in the streets… EL PUENTE DE LOS TESOROS is the tough and touching odyssey of two siblings that fight to survive in a hostile world in which interest and degradation rule. They, for sure, don’t have the time to think about Christmas, since the author portrays the other side of Christmas, how the homeless experience this time of the year in the big cities, and that, sometimes being homeless in inherited, but the majority of times it is not so, although the majority of us do not believe you can reach the top and fall down towards misery the following day.

Through this novel we discover it is not so, since this subworld is full of lucrative businesses and corrupt mafias. Thankfully, there is also nice people determined to help, but not forgetting that the survival animal instinct which uses the awkwardest of things as living down a bridge chosen by people to commit suicide, just to keep the elements they will not use anymore, is very present. A strong and powerful novel, perhaps not very Christmassy, but charming and, I think, highly recommendable since it is, indeed, the narration of a personal triumph and success by which the bond between two siblings is vital to keep going, no matter what. A wonderfully written story that hangs you by how well written it is and how lovely it is described. Congratulations, Óscar, for this wonderful first publication.

Pirate stories tend to be successful. Pirates are survivors, not always mean, but naughty, free and easy, and challenging. The first pirate I ever met was, probably, Captain Hook, but later on with the premiere of The Goonies, who were also looking for a hidden pirate treasure to escape. Or Mar i Cel, the musical, written by Àngel Guimerà and adapted by Dagoll Dagom, which made me change my mind about the characters. Saïd fought for justice, he didn’t want to harm anybody, but for Christians he had no mercy, there was no difference, they were all judged the same. We do still have to learn to avoid prejudices and to be more flexible in different situations we encounter. Pirates are a great example because of their surviving skills, which doesn’t imply they are mean, there are all sorts of them, as in every situation. I take their easy an cheerful personality as the positive side, and especially after Jack Sparrow’s films. Who wouldn’t want a pirate like him in their lives?

Gabriel Garcia de Oro and Purificación Hernández have published their 3rd book of the series EL CLUB DE LOS CANÍBALES, for kids from 6 to 10 years old, and this time EL CLUB DE LOS CANÍBALES SE TRAGA LA ISLA DEL TESORO, a classical pirate story of which many adaptations have been made. Through this series you will learn the essential there is to know of each and every one of the books classified as the ones we all should read. What is more, you will thoroughly enjoy with the club characters which have already introduced us other characters as DON QUIJOTE and DRACULA. Book collection for our kids, where, by having fun, they will learn something new of the great personalities and the great titles of our history. Highly recommended as Christmas gift. Gabriel and Puri make an amazing combo, and add humour to their books so that kids enjoy themselves while reading, pirates for fun, with that mischievous touch we enjoy so much. Congratulations guys! Let’s make some more.

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.