Category: 2014 SPAIN BOOK REVIEWS

SPAIN BOOK REVIEW: ‘Moving to Spain with Children’ by Lisa Sadleir

Published on by Caroline AngusLeave a comment

Ilustracion Portada Moving to Spain whith Children

Don’t even think of Moving to Spain with Children without reading this essential self-help manual. Compiled by a successful British working Mum who has experienced the relocation roller-coaster for you, the highs, lows and occasional shrieks of panic, it could save you months of hassle and heartache. Chapters cover: Timing your Move; Choosing the Best Location; Property Purchase; Schooling; Paperwork; Learning Spanish; Healthcare; Bringing Pets to Spain; Starting a Business… …And other considerations crucial to ensuring a smooth transition to your new lifestyle. With information that’s bang up-to-date, Lisa “tells it like it is”. Spiced with the author’s own heart-warming anecdotes, you’ll arrive at the same place her own family is now – but in half the time: Living and loving family life in Spain! If you have ever wished for the gift of hindsight, “Moving to Spain with Children” is just that: a gift of a book!

Cover and blurb from amazon

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Moving to Spain with Children is the latest offering from Lisa Sadleir, a long-time successful expat based in Mijas, Malaga, in southern Spain. Sadleir has a hugely popular website familylifeinspain.com, to help people make the move to Spain, which can be a magnificent experience, or epic disaster, dependent on many factors. Sadleir is also an independent relocation adviser and personal property finder at ccbspain.com.

Thanks to Sadleir, this book can solve any problem which may arise when moving your children to Spain. This extremely comprehensive book covers everything, from the essentials, choosing your location and time of year in which to move (a classic error for many), how to cope with the language and cultural barrier, to the most important aspect for parents, the education of their children. The education section alone is stand-out, covering all ages and needs, with real-life experience from parents and children.

Another huge consideration, healthcare, is fully explored, with options to suit the needs and budgets of all families through the country. The NIE process, Número de Identificación de Extranjero (basically a foreigners pass) can be fraught with trouble. The book covers the process for EU members, though many steps are also relevant to non-EU members, provided you have completed your paperwork at the Spanish embassy in your own country first. The process of registering on the Padrón, having yourself registered with the town hall, is included and essential. Dependent on your home nation, your circumstances and even the mood of the staff member you encounter, gaining NIE or residency can be a real mixed bag, so having this information laid out could be a huge help for many. When I first moved to Spain, I managed to gain an NIE through a bit of a backhand deal, simplifying the process, but even then I had to jump through fiery hoops at the embassy. There is no such thing as being over-prepared.

The never-ending trials and tribulations of purchasing a property and starting a business in Spain is fully covered, along with more personal experiences and examples to help you, along with (finger crossed) simpler matters such as money and banking considerations. Another section is extensively devoted to bringing your pet to Spain (something I’ve never even thought about), for those furrier family members. The book finishes with things to consider when leaving home and a reminder not to burn your bridges before you leave. Moving to Spain is an incredible experience, but the move can be difficult. I have seen plenty of people fail at the experiment, right down to a husband at the airport, begging his wife not to leave their new life behind.

This book would appeal to anyone moving to Spain, even if there are no children to consider, with practical and realistic advice. But when moving your children, so many issues need to be well planned, and I wish this book had existed when I first embarked on life in Spain. Finally, solid advice all in one place, from someone who has succeeded at Spanish life. Just take a look at Sadleir’s website and Facebook page to see success on a fantastic level!

To buy the book – 

USA / International – Ebook / Print

UK –  Ebook / Print

Spain  Ebook / Print

Visit Lisa Sadleir’s websites on moving to Spain –

familylifeinspain.com

ccbspain.com

movetomalaga.com

movetomijas.com

SPAIN BOOK REVIEW: ‘Death And The Sun: A Matador’s Season In The Heart Of Spain’ by Edward Lewine

Published on by Caroline AngusLeave a comment

Death-and-the-Sun

An immoral spectacle or a metaphor of life? Bullfighting never fails to provoke a reaction. In this unusual travel memoir, Edward Lewine embarks on an eye-opening journey around Spain to track a typical season for the country’s biggest bullfighter, Francisco Rivera Ordonez. Fighting bulls while fleeing celebrity, Spain’s most infamous matador lives both his public and his private life on the edge. The last in a distinguished bloodline, he is plagued by the legacies of his great-grandfather, the greatest matador of his day and revered by Hemingway, and by his late father, who was gored to death in the arena. With sixty-two fights and a hundred and twenty bulls to confront in the coming season, Francisco must also endure the aggressive attention of the paparazzi who pursue him for news of his colourful private life and breakdown of his marriage to a Spanish duchess. LEWINE witnesses at first hand the thrilling routine of a top bullfighter – the rituals, the risks, the stage fright – and assesses the significance of bullfighting in the context of Spanish identity. This national obsession encapsulates the uniqueness of Spanish culture.

Photo and blurb from Random House

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If you are not a fan of bullfighting, read my quick disclaimer or keep your opinions to yourself.

Edward Lewine’s book Death and the Sun is by no means new; published in 2005, I have read it several times, and have just finished reading it again while studying bullfighting. The book follows a make-or-break season for famous bullfighter Francisco Rivera Ordóñez, known as Fran. Fran comes from a famous line of bullfighters; his father was the famous Francisco Rivera Pérez, ‘Paquirri’, who died in the ring when Fran was 10. Along with his brother Cayetano, they would form another piece in a famous bullfighting family; their great-grandfather was Cayetano Ordóñez, who was a muse for Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises, and his grandfather was Antonio Ordóñez, who featured in Ernest Hemingway’s The Dangerous Summer. It seems Fran was always destined to become a bullfighter, the son of the most famously killed bullfighter, and he and his brother, born to a tabloid queen, are no strangers to being dressed in the traje de luces, the suit of lights.

This book covers Fran and so much more. The author sheds light on bullfighting for anyone not terribly knowledgeable on the event, the history, the traditions, the animals. No detail or aspect is left untouched. Following Fran through a season, shows an eventful eight month period for the bullfighter; Fran has just announced his separation from his wife Eugenia Martínez de Irujo, 12th Duchess of Montoro, with whom he shares a very young daughter. The tabloids are loving the story; his mother, in an ever-pressing need to be heard, shares tales of the relationship, something which only serves to make Fran’s season more difficult.

Fran is at a crossroads; use his skills to become one of the greats or fade into obscurity, like so many before him. The author follows Fran through all stages; the fights, the reactions, the travelling, the entourages and their thoughts. A whole world of glamour, traditions, bright lights and heavy pressures swirls about Fran, the ring leader of the bullfighting circus. Fran is no stranger to anyone interested in fighting. He has been followed by multiple writers, but this is an all-new angle on the man behind the family name.

Rather than being a travel book on Spain, you see the country through bullfighting eyes. There is tradition and drama, formalities and losses, people crying the usual bullfighting clichés and the zest for the melodramatic. The book also touches on bullfighting as a whole – addressing many of the cries from those who hate the entire event. Man against death. The bull will always die, that is not in question – but would death of the man be suitable, a loss, or a disappointment? Of course not.

The sections of the history of bullfighting are excellent in their detail, the stories of the bull-breeding is concise and yet never dull, all details are acknowledged so the reader can feel part of the exclusive world. There can’t be guide in English as well-written or thought-provoking as this. How a bullfighter travels and what his team have to say, earn and like is there, laid out in perfect clarity.

Fran is a difficult person to see in the book. While the characters all attempt to make themselves known, Fran almost seems to be behind a curtain, not quite letting out who he really is. He paints the picture of a man surrounded yet somehow solo, heaving under a huge weight of expectation, and yet finding himself not living up to those expectations, real or perceived. Frustration is evident with bulls which fail to live up to what Fran needs in order to cement his name in the ring.

Fran’s personal life is in total disarray, but Fran barely mentions it. Maybe it was painful, perhaps he wanted to keep it quiet while his ex and his mother continued to talk to anyone who would listen. Maybe he just didn’t care; sometimes divorce is a weight lifted. But no doubt the author covered Fran as who he appeared to be – reticent, strong, quiet and perfect for the role the suit of lights expected from him. Who Fran is in private, perhaps no one will know for sure. This book is perfect for anyone interested in bullfighting, and anyone who wishes to learn needs to look no further than Death and the Sun. I am quick to toss a book that doesn’t catch me early on, yet I’ve read this four times. This is a book about souls who live in a world which divides opinion like nothing else.

The most special day of Francisco Rivera Ordóñez

Francisco Rivera Ordóñez source

SPAIN BOOK REVIEW: ‘1984 and the Spanish Civil War’ by Paul Read

Published on by Caroline AngusLeave a comment

1984

In 1937, George Orwell spent six months in Catalonia, witnessing the rise and fall of the popular revolution on the streets of Barcelona and Catalonia. Alone amongst his contemporaries, Orwell understood what the success or failure of that Spanish Revolution would mean for the rest of the world. The lessons he learnt, were explained in the three books he wrote upon his return.

1984 And The Spanish Civil War – the 2nd book in the ‘Forgotten Spain Series’ – tells the story of Orwell’s relationship with Spain and the legacy he has left us:

*How far was ‘1984’ and ‘Animal Farm’ the inevitable conclusion to all Orwell had witnessed in those brief months he spent in Spain?
*Why was his work so unanimously rejected by his contemporaries in England?
*Was the revolution Orwell witnessed in Barcelona crushed forever by the end of the war, or did it slide into hibernation, awaiting the present conditions for revival?

If you want to understand Spain today, you need to understand Orwell. If you wish to understand the work of Orwell, you need to understand the history of Spain in 1937.

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1984 and the Spanish Civil War is the second book in Paul Read’s Forgotten Stories from Spain series. George Orwell, now synonymous with ‘privacy, procedure and responsibility’ has much to thank from his time in Spain in regards to his greatest works. His theory on the ‘thought police’ , of big brother and their CCTV cameras are part of common culture, and he was the man who gave a face to big corporates and hierarchies that control the populace. While the reclusive Orwell (real name Eric Blair) died aged just 46, his work lives on.

His work, Homage to Catalonia, is the best piece of work that embodies the Spanish Civil War from a personal point of view, by a man who didn’t fall for ideals of either side of the fight, and dared to stand up and question Spain’s situation. With suspicion from the right and criticism from the left, he was able to produce three of his great works – Homage to Catalonia, Animal Farm and 1984.

Between 30-35,000 people joined the civil war as volunteers, the International Brigades, organised mostly by the Communist Party, but Orwell slipped into Spain through a Marxist militia and fought for the POUM, which would eventually be his downfall in Spain. He was able to assess the different sides of the left in the war – Socialists, Anarchists, Communists, Republicans, Basques, Catalonians and the big unions in Barcelona, the UGT and CNT. 1984 and the Spanish Civil War is a great way to understand why Orwell came to the conclusions he did, what he faced in his desire to fight and come to grips with Spain unlike anyone before him. The book also details what Orwell and his wife went through in escaping Spain.

1984 and Spanish Civil War discusses how criticism of Homage to Catalonia led Orwell to use satire in writing both Animal Farm and 1984 to relate his ideals and knowledge. In learning how power can destroy ideals and morals, and seeing the left coalition the civil war collapse under ‘folding lies’, fighting for something to save face rather than believing in the facts, Orwell was able to produce these stunning works.

The book also goes on to talk about how, in many ways, Spain has not changed. In these times of austerity, many of the original ideas that spurred the civil war have come alive again: the left wing and anarchism in its root form – with the indignados, occupation movements, desahucios (evictions and related occupations) and also escrache, calling people to account in public settings (humiliation protests if you will). Orwell may be proud that some of his ideas are alive and in practice today, who knows.

Paul Read has written an excellent book on the subject of Orwell and the effect of the war on the Englishman. 1984 and the Spanish Civil War is insightful, well-researched and written in a smooth, satisfying pace, giving out so many details, and informing the reader on many certitudes that they may not have known. A highly recommended book.

See book one in the series – Forgotten Stories from Spain: The Ambulance Man and the Spanish Civil War

See more from Paul Read on Speaking of Spain

SPAIN BOOK REVIEW: ‘The Ambulance Man and the Spanish Civil War’ by Paul Read

Published on by Caroline AngusLeave a comment

Paul Read

 

The Ambulance Man and the Spanish Civil War is the first book in the Forgotten Stories from Spain series by Paul Read, giving readers a chance to learn tales of the ‘bravery, humanity and vision’ which existed in 1930’s Spain. But never fear – there is no need to have a great understanding of the time period, as this book caters to both seasoned and new readers of the subject. The book leaps into the time period with a prologue outlining Spain during the war for anyone in need of background details.

This book is the story of Canadian Norman Bethune, a man passionate about public healthcare and social justice. Around 1600 Canadians joined the fight in Spain as volunteers during the war. Bethune started his time in Madrid, noted for both his work, and his fondness of women, drinking and criticism of the regimes operating during that time. Like George Orwell in Barcelona, Bethune became ‘known’ to the Communists and their strict rules, only to have this backfire against him later on in his tour of duty.

The Andalucian city of Malaga, deep in southern Spain, was suffering heavily. The ancient city had a massive disparity in land and wealth, and looked forward to revolution in 1931 at the start of the Second Spanish Republic, but had become tired of waiting for change when war broke out in 1936. But by February 1937, Franco and his troops, with help from the Italians, were advancing fast on the poor city with little way of defending itself. The people had two choices – run or die. People decided to walk the 200km to Almeria and potential safety – not an easy feat with children, elderly, no food or supplies, and carrying everything dear to them.

Along the road, the ‘Carretera de la Muerte’, or Highway of Death, there was only one hope against the bombing, shooters and endless sun. Norman Bethune was the only soul keen enough to do something about the people and their desperate need for help. While thousands died, Bethune had a simple yet brave plan to help the people of Malaga. The book tells of the plan and of what greeted everyone in Almeria, and of Bethune’s escape from Spain after his daring plot. The book also goes on to tell the stories of Bethune’s time in China, and who does and doesn’t remember his work today.

The author uses a fast, smooth, no-nonsense style to recall this forgotten tale, peppering the story with important details, and uses interviews with survivors, and information on how a large percentage of Spain doesn’t know their own history. This book is an easy read, giving people a short yet important insight to a man whose bravery still needs to be shared. The Ambulance Man and the Spanish Civil War is a terrific opening for the Forgotten Stories from Spain series for anyone to enjoy.

Next week I will review the second book in the series Forgotten Stories from Spain: 1984 and the Spanish Civil War

You can find more about Paul Read on his fantastic website – Speaking of Spain

SPAIN BOOK REVIEW: ‘Into the Arena’ by Alexander Fiske-Harrison

Published on by Caroline Angus

IntoTheArena

Alexander Fiske-Harrison spent a season studying and travelling with the matadors and breeders of famous “fighting bulls” of Spain (and France and Portugal. ) He ran with the bulls in Pamplona and found himself invited to join his new friends in the ring with 500lb training cows. This developed into a personal quest to understand the bullfight at its deepest levels, and he entered into months of damaging and dangerous training with one of the greatest matadors of all, Eduardo Dávila Miura, to prepare himself to experience the bullfight in its true essence: that of man against bull in a life or death struggle from which only one can emerge alive.

cover and blurb via amazon

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Every time I write something regarding bullfighting, I get plenty of hate mail, regardless of the content. Just the mere word ‘bullfighting’ sends people into a spin. There are those who constantly come on here and say I deserve to endure genital mutilation for my writing (which only makes you as grotesque as how you view bullfighting, so STFU). I find it interesting that no one who comes to my site to hound me has ever actually asked my personal view on bullfighting, and logic of abusers seems so ridiculous. When I wrote about rape or spousal abuse, no one asked me if I endorsed those subjects, so for that reason, I have decided to leave comments closed on this new post. Putting up with harassment is not a sign of strength. I shall not be passive, and I shall not be attacked either.

Into the Arena by Alexander Fiske-Harrison is a book I read a few years ago, but never reviewed. I decided to read it again recently, while doing some bullfighting research. I have been reminded how much I enjoyed this account on the subject.

It is argued that bullfighting, when done well, is a work of art, and a sin when done poorly. These two differences are a beautiful reflection of the arguments for and against the battle of death. The author shows how, after first seeing fights in 2000, until his full-fledged love affair with the art form years later, the only way to truly understand bullfighting is to be emerged in the world of the toreros. Bullfighting in the 21st century has triple the number of fights of the so-called golden-age of fighting in the 1930’s. Bullfighters earn enormous sums like football stars, marry beautiful girls and appear on magazine covers. Between the fights, the endorsements, and the celebrity caper, there is an industry worth over €2 billion a year. It would be easy to be swept away by the glamour aspect.

Fiske-Harrison is staunch defender of bullfighting. Some could say it could be a case of being caught in the bright lights of the toreros. Instead, the author turns to some of the greatest names of the current era – Cayetano Rivera Ordóñez, a celebrity wherever he goes, and who speaks of the death in his life as part of a weekly routine.  José Tomás, ‘The Phenomenon’, some say the greatest performer of the age – who performs with great skill and nearly dies in the process. A horrific goring in Mexico shows the lengths the man will go to for what he believes is greatness. Then there is Juan José Padilla, known famously for being the torero who had his eye gored from his face. One famous fight shows Padilla fighting in the same event as Tomás, and nearly gets gravely injured due to vanity, wishing to be the most beloved of the night. Padilla is the epitome of those who live for the skill and thrill.

But this book doesn’t seek to raise the profiles or talk up the participants. This book also addresses the moral conundrum of the event. The hate of bullfighting can be as strong as the love, and the book does its best to counter some of the arguments – that the bulls are treated more humanely than your standard animal raised to become a steak (which I would agree with). Many who argue against bullfighting think little of the grotesque nature of the death of their dinner (or, like me, find steak-eating appalling). The book also discusses the economic and ecological benefits of bullfighting. While these arguments do have their merit, those opposed to the spectacle would no doubt be able to dismiss the claims.

Bullfighting is Spain’s ‘feast of art and danger’. That is mostly certainly true. The book takes a turn as Fiske-Harrison attempts to get into the ring himself, to learn the moves and nature of the animals. You can hate bullfighting all you like, but rarely does anyone have the courage to face one of these strong and aggressive animals. The animals are bred specifically for their speed and aggressive behaviour, and are fast learners. There will also be bulls who do not show the enthusiasm for death that the crowd would want (I’ve seen scared and disinterested bulls in the ring myself). The toreros have a great affinity for the graceful animals, but they must be killed. In the end, the audience is the beast while the man and animal square off for entertainment.

The world of bullfighting is a mixture of death and machismo – two things that can seem extremely unappealing. The author manages to sneak in and out of the world with great fluidity, makes up his own mind based on research and personal effort, and doesn’t waver from his personal opinion. While some see bullfighting as men with inflated egos killing animals to show off for a crowd, where the death of animals is both cruel and pointless, Fiske-Harrison attempts to portray the world of culture, tradition, respect and of bullfighting’s essence – the struggle of life and death. This is a great book told through one man’s perspective, but whether you enjoy the read may depend on your position on the subject.

Because the subject is so decisive, I will continue to both read and write about it, from both sides of the argument.  However, I’m not sure there is any piece of work that will ever sway a reader from their opinion. Some may get caught up the glamour and popularity, and many can respect the animals, but can readers endorse the kill? Who knows. You need to look past the kill to see the men and culture behind it, an action not everyone wants to try.