100 books like Madrid

On the face of it, this classic 19th-century travelogue is about one man travelling through Spain and Portugal in the 1830s distributing Bibles… which is not exactly a page-turning idea. And indeed the first section – set in Portugal – is unbearably tedious (in fact, just skip it altogether). But once Borrow crosses the border into Spain it becomes a whole other book. It’s as if he can finally cast off his dour, pious disguise and write about what really excites him: Spanish Gypsies. Already speaking their language (the man was a machine when it came to picking up foreign tongues), he falls in with them almost immediately, leading to numerous colourful adventures as he wends his way in Quixotic fashion across the country. The tales he tells are exotic and Romantic (with a capital ‘R’) and capture something of the ineffable essence of the country: a playful, mysterious and… show more.

The books in this list are all written by non-Spaniards, for obvious reasons. This one is almost an exception. Tomás Graves is the eighth son of the English poet and novelist Robert Graves. He has lived almost his entire life on the island of Mallorca, and is, effectively, as native as they come. Tuning Up at Dawn is a wonderfully lyrical account of his upbringing, his memories of his father, and his life as a musician. It is deliciously evocative of a slower world which has now all but disappeared.

Another book which brings the history of a city to life. For years, Nick Lloyd has been leading highly informative guided walks around Barcelona sites associated with the Spanish Civil War, and now he has compiled much of his vast knowledge on the subject in this excellent book. Packed with fascinating details and anecdotes, this is pretty much the last word on the subject.

If there’s only one that I could recommend, it’s this brilliant, beautiful, and vexing book by María Rosa Menocal, Sterling Professor at Yale University. In a compelling and artful manner, Menocal tells the story of medieval Spain from the arrival of the first Umayyad rulers to Cervantes. Beyond being a useful introduction to the fascinating history, Menocal makes the argument that a culture of tolerance existed in medieval Spain, one that transcended religious and ethnic differences. The principal engine of this culture, she suggests, was the Arabic language. Menocal’s book has received as much praise as criticism, a testament to its enduring power and the contentious quality of medieval Spain.

Javier Marías, who died recently, is a mesmerising writer. I lived in Spain for many years and have read most of his books. I recommend reading A Heart So White to start, but here, Berta Isla is perfect. This book introduces Tomás Nevinson, who is Anglo-Spanish. While studying at Oxford, he declines an offer to join MI6. He is then accused of murder—a ruse to oblige him to become an infiltrator. Now married to Berta in Madrid, he officially works for the embassy, but travels frequently on undercover missions, while Berta and their children find it difficult to accept his long, unexplained absences.

The book is an exploration of deception, betrayal, loyalty, identity, how a person becomes a spy, and how this impacts personal life.

I shall miss him.

Published way back in 1554, this revolutionary novel is irreverent, amusing, and gloriously critical of the hypocrisy of 16th century Spanish society and, by extension, our own times. The main character is a destitute scoundrel named Lazarillo who seeks to better his fortunes while in the service of a brutal priest and host of other unseemly characters. By creating an anti-hero who is a witty misfit and outcast, and by portraying Spanish society as morally bankrupt, the author earned the wrath of the Spanish monarchy – which banned the novel – and the Catholic Church, which placed it on its Index of forbidden literature. My novel is also on the Church’s list of forbidden books, so I feel a special kinship with the unnamed author of this groundbreaking work.    

I enjoyed this from the very first page because it brought to me the nostalgia of a past era. It is so well constructed and a refreshing subject that brings the Madrid of 1868 to life.

Jaime Astarloa is the aging, old-school fencing master and survivor of duels who prides himself on loyalty and honor with an obsession to create the perfect sword thrust but is now aware of his physical decline.

When the cunning Adela de Otero appears as a worthwhile opponent who wants to learn from Jaime, he finds himself caught up in political intrigues where his old-time values have no substance. I found it hard to put it down.    

The Sleeping Voice is the most poignant novel about women in the Spanish civil war you will get to read. Those voices are the ones of the women who fought throughout the dictatorship not to be forgotten as the silent soldiers they were. Those voices tell us that the real heroes are very often anonymous. You won’t be able to part with Hortensia, Elvira and Tomasa, the heroines: I can guarantee that they will all stay with you. I actually chose a quote from that book to open Blood Song: it is about a mother wondering how the sea looks like as her boys are laying in it. 

There’s being lost in life, then there’s drunkenly lying about your mother’s death in order to elicit sympathy from a potential love interest. Having bluffed his way into a fellowship in Spain, Adam Gordon, the highly privileged, highly incompetent narrator of this book, spends most of his days getting high and wrestling with the connection between experience and art, questioning his own legitimacy at every turn. Not a lot happens, but that’s kind of the point: the absence of adversity in Gordon’s life is what makes him so insecure and is perhaps saying something on the topic of American decline.

Foreigners also joined the other side. Around 80,000 volunteers from Morocco, a Spanish protectorate, signed up to fight with the rightist rebels for money, adventure, and jihad. Sebastian Balfour’s fascinating book traces the intertwined history of the two countries to show why poor North African Muslims ground under the heel of Spanish imperialism felt they had more in common with General Francisco Franco’s right-wing Nationalists than with the Popular Front government in Madrid. Moroccan soldiers were vital to Franco’s eventual victory even if many would become bitter that their country never got the independence the nationalists had promised.