Winter in Madrid is exactly the type of book that I like.
It is based around a certain period of history (post the civil war in Spain, and early on in WWII) so you get a good feel for a particular period in time, while at the same time it is a good old fashioned thriller – bit of spying, bit of fighting, and a nice twist at the end.
It is well written, in particular in the way that it builds the pictures of the characters, and its accuracy to the civil war (from the little I have read i.e. The Spanish Civil War) seems very good indeed.
If you want to get a feel of the culture and current history of Spain, while at the same time enjoying a good old read this book is well worth picking up.
While you are at it take a quick look at my training update
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Sounds Interesting. I didn’t even know there had been a Civil War in Spain. You learn somrthing new everyday!
Yep, a BIG thing the Civil War here in Spain. Still causes heated debate as you can imagine. At it’s simplist level it was Fasicm v Communism.
A lof of people feel that the Gereman and Russian involvement was them testing out their weaponary pre WWII.
That sounds interesting. And it reminds me a bit of a book I read – and thoroughly enjoyed – last year: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.
Initially, its cover caught my eye while wandering through a local bookstore. I picked it up and only had to read the first couple of lines of the back page to decide to go for it: “Hidden in the heart of the of the old city of Barcelona is the ‘Cemetery of Forgotten Books’, a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles. To this library, a man brings his ten-year-old son, Daniel, one cold morning in 1945.”
It’s a little different from the sort of books I normally read (when I make/get the time these days) and I probably enjoyed it as much for that as for the story itself.
Given that you enjoyed “Winter in Madrid” so much, I think you might well enjoy this one too. And maybe I’ll pick “Winter in Madrid” up the next time I’m in one of my local bookstores and see if it “speaks” to me.
Well as fate would have it that book is the one that I have just started reading 🙂
Wow. Spooky. In that case, I look forward to hearing your report on it once completed…
Sure, but it may be a while, I have 3 Photography books to review still!
I just envy you the time you have. To actually be able to sit down and read something for even 30 min, with out anyone bothering you. I’m just hoping that maybe in about 12 years I might be able to do that again. I miss my books.
Funny thing is that I don’t really sit down to read a book. I sort of grab 10, 20 30 minutes when I can – before bed, in the bath, on the roof when cat sitting Moreno type of thing.
That is why I switched to audio books. The problem with those is they are on average about 15-20 hours in length, and that cuts into my podcast listening. Oh well too much information and not enough time and space to absorb it all.
I went through a phase of audiobooks when I was travelling a lot, and when I had time to lay in the sun for a couple of hours.
I much prefer the concept of physically reading a book though – preferably on the balcony, with Moreno on my knee and a glass of wine in my other hand 🙂
I can still remember the time when I could sit on the deck and read peacefully. The memory is fading rapidly though….
Ah, but from you just said to me on IM that doesn’t mean it wasn’t last week with your memory, you remember, the week when you said you would donate half your future Mac budget to a worthy cause 🙂
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