For residents of Barcelona’s old town an affair way up in Sarrià or Sant Gervasi is probably the best way of surviving the summer. Ensure beforehand that your new friend’s flat is high in a modern block overlooking gardens, and you can enjoy coffee and parrots (barbecued, if you’re lucky) on the balcony before drifting [...]

Arturo Pérez-Reverte sez (via Órdago):
As I type this I still don’t know whether the ultranationalists will succeed in making Catalan the only official and obligatory language in the new statute of autonomy. I should add that I neither know nor care, and that everyone should speak how he facking wants. But the problem is [...]

Towards the end of La colmena (The hive), Cela’s portrait of a post-war Madrid devoid of heroes and on the brink of oblivion,
The morning ascends, little by little, climbing like a worm through the hearts of the men and the women of the city.
This reminds me of the episode in Pío Baroja’s morbid Santa Teresa [...]