Summer is the perfect season to read "In Europe," an original, fresh and first hand documented essay of recent European history. It's an ideal reading for anyone doing "le grand tour" across the Old Continent. Euro-skeptics should read it as well to confirm that European unification is one of the few ideas in our recent history not made of blood, shame or tears.
The book is a roadmap of 20th century Europe. It takes you on a trip through the last hundred years’ key events: from the cosmopolitan Paris of 1900, the first year of an optimistic new century, to a snowy Sarajevo recovering in 1999 from the century’s last civil war. Verdun, Stalingrad, Gdansk, Chernobil can all be seen through the windows of these pages. As can Versailles, Vienna and Paris.
Geert Mak, a Dutch writer and journalist, has reached the bestseller list with a 1000-page book full of testimonies from the year he spent crisscrossing the Continent writing weekly chronicles of his adventures. His journey compelled a fresco rich in detail which invites you to think.
"Los Girasoles Ciegos" is a 155-page book of four short stories, fiction set at the end of the (last) Spanish Civil War in 1939. The characters have a certain ethic in common: they are all losers.
This has been unanimously acclaimed as the best book published in Spain in recent years. Alberto Mendez, the author, published it when he was 63 years old. It was his first book. He could not enjoy the many awards it received because he died the same year, 2004. A left-wing publisher, his editorial company was closed during Franco regime. He was also an (apparent) loser.
"In Europe" will help you to learn about Europe's past. "Los Girasoles Ciegos" will help you to escape from our present mediocrity.
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