{"id":72185,"date":"2016-08-25T11:50:24","date_gmt":"2016-08-25T09:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/?p=72185"},"modified":"2016-09-06T12:09:38","modified_gmt":"2016-09-06T10:09:38","slug":"books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/books\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Books Set in Barcelona"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Everyone loves to read a good book. We take our book to the beach with us, or we use it to rest our head on when we lie in the shade under a tree in summer. Books are also good Christmas gifts, and we love to read them to our children by the fire place. But did you know that there are books with the story taking place in the city of Barcelona? There are four books that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>ShBarcelona<\/strong><\/a> would like to share with you today, because after all, we are talking about one of the most culturally rich\u00a0cities in Europe here.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Related article:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/music\/\">Songs about Barcelona<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_17 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-grey\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class=\"ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1\"><li class=\"ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2\"><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/books\/#Homage_to_Catalonia\" title=\"Homage to Catalonia\">Homage to Catalonia<\/a><\/li><li class=\"ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2\"><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/books\/#Homage_to_Barcelona\" title=\"Homage to Barcelona\">Homage to Barcelona<\/a><\/li><li class=\"ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2\"><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/books\/#The_Time_of_the_Doves\" title=\"The Time of the Doves\">The Time of the Doves<\/a><\/li><li class=\"ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2\"><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/books\/#The_City_of_Marvels\" title=\"The City of Marvels\">The City of Marvels<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Homage_to_Catalonia\"><\/span>Homage to Catalonia<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<div id=\"attachment_99028\" style=\"width: 190px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-99028\" class=\"wp-image-99028\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/author-1320965_1280-150x150.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"180\" height=\"250\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-99028\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo via Pixabay<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The well-traveled George Orwell is best known for his books Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-four. Born in India he spent some of his life in Barcelona during the <strong>Spanish Civil War<\/strong> and from his time there the book <strong>Homage to Catalonia<\/strong> (1938) was born: &#8220;Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the anarchists: every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle\u2026 Down the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/las-ramblas\/\"><strong>Ramblas<\/strong><\/a>\u2026 the loudspeakers were bellowing revolutionary songs.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Homage_to_Barcelona\"><\/span>Homage to Barcelona<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A book with a similar name by a\u00a0contemporary author is <strong>Homage to Barcelona<\/strong> (2002) written by <strong>Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn<\/strong>. Colm moved to Barcelona in 1975 when he was twenty. Even before he left his native Ireland he had vast knowledge about the country he would call home. Some critics have described this book as \u201ca sensuous and beguiling portrait of a unique Mediterranean port and an adopted home.\u201d This book explores the factual <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/catalonias-history-museum\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">history<\/a> <\/strong>of this city, moving from its foundations, it\u2019s artists, the lives of Gaud\u00ed, Mir\u00f3, Picasso, Casals and Dali through to nationalism, civil war and the transition from dictatorship to democracy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Related article:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/quotes\/\">Quotes about Barcelona<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_Time_of_the_Doves\"><\/span>The Time of the Doves<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<div id=\"attachment_72191\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-72191\" class=\"wp-image-72191 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/dog-with-books-300x231.jpg\" alt=\"dog-with-books\" width=\"300\" height=\"231\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-72191\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Photo by Jerzy Durczak via Visualhunt<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Next on the list is <strong>Merc\u00e8 Rodoreda<\/strong>, <strong>The Time of the Doves<\/strong> (1962). If you want a good reason to read this book then you might like to know that Gabriel Garcia Marquez learned <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/learn-catalan-free\/\"><strong>Catalan<\/strong><\/a> just by reading this novel. He called it &#8220;the most beautiful novel published in Spain since the Civil War.&#8221; It is not your usual account of the civil war, there is no fighting or scenes from the front. We learn about the war from the perspective of a woman whose husband is fighting with the Republicans while she works hard to feed herself and her two children.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_City_of_Marvels\"><\/span>The City of Marvels<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Eduardo Mendoza<\/strong> was born in Barcelona in 1943. He wrote <strong>The City of Marvels<\/strong> (1986), a tale about a boy who rises from abject poverty to riches and power, and of Barcelona&#8217;s growth from a small provincial capital into a metropolitan city. &#8220;The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/travel-spain-train\/\"><strong>traveler<\/strong><\/a> who comes to Barcelona for the first time soon notices where the old city ends and the new begins. The streets become straight and wide instead of winding: the pavements, less crowded; tall plane trees shade them pleasantly; the buildings are more distinguished \u2026 another city.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Have you read any of these books?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<div style=\"display: none;\"\n    class=\"kk-star-ratings kksr-valign-bottom kksr-align-left \"\n    data-id=\"72185\"\n    data-slug=\"\">\n    <div class=\"kksr-stars\">\n    <div class=\"kksr-stars-inactive\">\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"1\">\n            <div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 25px; height: 25px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"2\">\n            <div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 25px; height: 25px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"3\">\n            <div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 25px; height: 25px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"4\">\n            <div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 25px; height: 25px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\" data-star=\"5\">\n            <div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 25px; height: 25px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    <div class=\"kksr-stars-active\" style=\"width: 150px;\">\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\">\n            <div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 25px; height: 25px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\">\n            <div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 25px; height: 25px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\">\n            <div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 25px; height: 25px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\">\n            <div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 25px; height: 25px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n            <div class=\"kksr-star\">\n            <div class=\"kksr-icon\" style=\"width: 25px; height: 25px;\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n    <div class=\"kksr-legend\">\n            <strong class=\"kksr-score\">5<\/strong>\n        <span class=\"kksr-muted\">\/<\/span>\n        <strong>5<\/strong>\n        <span class=\"kksr-muted\">(<\/span>\n        <strong class=\"kksr-count\">1<\/strong>\n        <span class=\"kksr-muted\">\n            vote        <\/span>\n        <span class=\"kksr-muted\">)<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone loves to read a good book. We take our book to the beach with us, or we use it to rest our head on when we lie in the shade under a tree in summer. Books are also good Christmas gifts, and we love to read them to our children by the fire place. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":72186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4349],"tags":[9190,9192,9189,9191],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72185"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72201,"href":"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72185\/revisions\/72201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}