James Reston, Jr.

Columbus, the Inquisition and the defeat of the Moors

Set against the fury and strife that arose from the cinders of medieval Europe, “Dogs of God” chronicles one of the most savage epochs in human history. In an effort to consolidate their powers on the Iberian Peninsula and free themselves from the yoke of the Vatican, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella turned to the priest Tomas de Torquemada, who argued that an Inquisition would strengthen the sovereigns’ authority throughout Spain, particularly in the coming campaign against the Moors of Granada. When Granada Fell, tens of thousands of Muslims were given the choice of converting to Christianity or facing death or banishment. Torquemada then turned his ferocity on Spain’s Jews, forcing upon them the same grim choice…Reston’s compelling narrative brings all of the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition into a terrifyingly brutal focus. But, Reston looks beyond the dark deeds of 1492 as well, capturing the excitement of exploration and promise of the future that were born in the same year as Ferdinand and Isabella turned their eyes toward the creation of a modern empire - and a young sea captain named Christopher Columbus.

Price: 7.50€ Hardback. All our books are sold in Excellent Condition.

Evan S Connell

During the vile days of the Spanish Inquisition, Francisco Goya, a renown Spanish painter, painted royalty, street urchins and demons with the same brush, bringing his own distinctive touch to each. This unusual man and his ghastly times are the perfect subject for Evan S. Connell, one of our greatest and least conventional writers. This unorthodox biography shines with wit, erudition and prodigious research. To say Connell is intimate with his subject is an understatement: He seems to be inside Goya’s famously impenetrable skin.

Price 7.50€ Hardback. All our books are sold in prestine condition

Jane S Gerber

A History of the Sephardic Experience

A narrative history of the Sephardic Jews discusses the first Jewish settlements of Roman times, Sephardic relations with Christian and Muslim societies, Spain’s Golden Age, and the expulsion of the Jews.

Price 7.50€  All our books are sold in excellent condition.

Ildefonso Falcones

14th-century Spain is enjoying a golden age of prosperity. It is building a magnificent church to overlook their harbour. In its shadow, Arnau, a young serf on the run from his feudal lord. Arnau’s journey from slave to nobleman is the story of a struggle between good and evil that will turn Church against State and brother against brother.

Price: 7.50€ All our books are sold in prestine condition.

Janet Mendel

AND MORE GREAT DISHES FROM SPAIN

This striking cookbook is a celebration of the sunny flavours os Spain. Above all olive oil, garlic, fresh fruits and vegetables in an attractive presentation of classic recipes and stunning colour photographs.

Price 10.90 euros

Richard Tapper

Tapas is a contemporary collection of delicious recipes for Spanish appetisers.

Featuring a wide varietyof recipres for Fish, Seafood, Eggs, Savories, Vegetables, Desserts.

With inspiring photography and recipes that make cooking as easy as can be.

Price 10.00 euros

Norman Lewis

After World War II, Norman Lewis returned to Spain and settled in the remote fishing village of Farol, on what is now Costa Brava. Voices of the Old Sea describes his three successive summers in that almost medieval community where life revolved around the seasonal sardine catches, Alcade’s bar, and satisfying feuds with neighboring villages. It’s lucky Lewis was there when he was. Soon after, Spain was discovered by its neighbors in a more prosperous northern Europe, and the tourist tide that ensued flowed inexorably over the old ways of the town and its inhabitants.

Price 12.90é

Giles Tremlett

TRAVELS THROUGH A COUNTRY´S HIDDEN PAST.

The appearance - sixty years after that war ended - of mass graves containing victims of Franco’s death squads has finally broken what Spaniards call ‘the pact of forgetting’. At this charged moment, Giles Tremlett embarked on a journey around Spain - and through Spanish history. Tremlett’s journey was also an attempt to make sense of his personal experience of the Spanish. Why do they dislike authority figures, but are cowed by a doctor’s white coat? How had women embraced feminism without men noticing? What binds gypsies, jails and flamenco? Why do the Spanish go to plastic surgeons, donate their organs, visit brothels or take cocaine more than other Europeans?

Price 11.50

Paul Preston

REACTION, REVELUTION & REVENGE

No war in modern times has inflamed the passions of both ordinary people and intellectuals in the way that the conflict in Spain in 1936 did.The Spanish Civil War is burned into European consciousness, not simply because it prefigured the much larger world war that followed it, but because the intense manner of its prosecution was a harbinger of a new and horrific form of warfare that was universally dreaded. At the same time, the hopes awakened by the attempted social revolution in republican Spain chimed with the aspirations of many in Europe and the United States during the grim years of the great Depression. This is a full-blooded account of this pivotal period in twentieth-century European history. Paul Preston vividly recounts the struggles of the war, analyzes the wider implications of the revolution in the Republican zone, tracks the emergence of Francisco Franco’s brutal (and, ultimately, extraordinarily durable) fascist dictatorship and assesses the ways in which the Spanish Civil War was a portent of the Second World War that ensued so rapidly after it.

Price 14.90€

Toby Green

The Reighn Of Fear

Everybody has heard of the Inquisition. It was an institution that pursued heretics, philandering priests and sexual deviants in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America for a period of over 350 years, changing its focus with the times and enduring stubbornly into the nineteenth century. Today the word implies dread, fear and a withheld threat of torture. But who were its targets? Why did it provoke such fear? How and where did it operate? Why was it founded, and why did it last for so long?Toby Green’s incredible new book brings an extraordinary 350-year period vividly to life by focusing on the hitherto untold stories of individuals from all walks of life. Because the Inquisition touched every aspect of society, it changed the world: people attending church had to look suitably devout, or they might be denounced; a curse at a game of cards, thrown out in the heat of the moment, could bring an investigation; stripping fat from a leg of lamb was enough to excite accusations of being a Jew. A secret police and a thought police, the Inquisition produced a permanent state of fear.This history, though filled with stories of terror and the unspeakable ways in which human beings can treat one another, is also one of hope and ultimately of the resilience of the human spirit. Instead of being cowed by their fear, countless people rebelled in small and big ways, paving the way for a more inclusive society.The story of the Inquisition is not, then, one to be hidden and avoided; it deserves to be told in all its human richness and complexity.

Price 14.90