The Carpenter's Pencil

Books Burn Badly

On 19 August 1936 Hercules the boxer stands on the quayside at Coruña and watches Fascist soldiers piling up books and setting them alight. It is a moment which transforms a young group of friends, who just weeks before had spent their days sunbathing be

¿Qué me quieres, amor?

Un viajante, vendedor de lencería espera ansioso al volante la reaparición del hijo huido y recibe la milagrosa ayuda de un héroe del rock. El misterio de la luz de un cuadro, La lechera de Vermeer, devuelve a un escritor al regazo de la madre. Un jove

Bartleby & Co.

In Bartleby Co., an enormously enjoyable novel, Enrique Vila-Matas tackles the theme of silence in literature: the writers and non-writers who, like the scrivener Bartleby of the Herman Melville story, in answer to any question or demand, replies: "I woul

Montano's Malady

The narrator of Montano’s Malady is a writer named Jose who is so obsessed with literature that he finds it impossible to distinguish between real life and fictional reality. Part picaresque novel, part intimate diary, part memoir and philosophical mu

Death Rites (Petra Delicado Mysteries, #1)

From the winner of the Feminino Lumen Prize for best female writer in Spain, a new book in the Petra Delicado mystery series. Inspector Petra Delicado has been chained to a tiresome desk job in the documentation department of the Barcelona police force fo