The most recommended books about Madrid

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.

Hemingway (who might have fully ‘got’ Spain if he had been less obsessed with ‘being Hemingway’) once described Madrid as ‘the centre of the world’. Jules Stewart is a former reporter who knows the city like the back of his hand. In this book he provides a perfect guide for travellers (even of the armchair variety) around what is one of the most vibrant European capitals. From Dalí’s favourite café to the place where Cervantes drew his last breath, it brings the history of the place alive like nothing else.

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.

An art mystery, a murder mystery. What more could you ask for?

In Madrid, a noted art restorer Julia has received a painting that is itself an intriguing mystery. A fifteenth-century Flemish painting of a Knight and a Duke playing chess. Julia finds hidden under the paint the inscription Who Killed the Knight? That is a secret that was not meant to be revealed. This book is pre-internet so research is leg work. A cast of devious and delightful characters help and hinder Julia's quest to find the answers she seeks and try to avoid becoming a victim of her curiosity. I love the descriptions of art restoration, the ambiance, and the night owl lifestyle of the characters. 

The Monk mixes rich Gothic fiction with wonderfully light comedic moments to create a compelling story that feels more modern than its 1796 publishing date.

The two main concurrent stories allow the plot to develop from the romance of the early chapters into a dark glimmering tale of religion, romance, corruption, and downfall.

The book is gloriously written, especially if you can find a copy prior to the slightly sanitized fourth edition, which was written in response to controversy about the "immorality and wild extravagance" of the original. What better praise could a book obtain?

Matthew Gregory Lewis wrote The Monk in his late teens, and the book glows with the heat of youthful rage, gloriously unconcerned with issues of propriety and “good taste.” The title monk, Ambrosio, unknowingly sets the course for his own damnation when he has sex with Matilda, a demon disguised as a beautiful woman. As the novel progresses, this illicit affair ignites Ambrosio’s most lurid urges, and he descends into extreme depravity: he dabbles in sorcery, he rapes, he murders. Gregory writes the book’s climax in visceral detail, gruesomely describing Ambrosio’s fate at the hands of Satan. Although The Monk features two main plotlines and, in truly Gothic fashion, periodic digressions into flashbacks and tangential subplots, it is brisk, lean, scary, and fiercely propulsive.

The ease of reading of this author is fascinating. He also manages to tell us a story that he connects in a wonderful way with some Roman remains found in the north of Spain. Definitely a great read if the reader can read Spanish. It is full of exciting and brilliant moments that the reader of ancient history will undoubtedly appreciate.

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.    

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. 

What's not to like when the main character is a self-styled "book detective" making his way through the hidden passages and darker alleys of the world of rare antiquarian books? Lucas Corso seeks to authenticate an old manuscript by Alexander Dumas, but his quest takes an eerie turn as the events and characters he encounters along the way begin to replicate those found in Dumas's fiction. This delightful 1993 novel was meta before meta was cool, and is deeply rewarding for any bibliophile.

Apparently I’m not the only kidlit author who loves both the American prairie and all things British. When her Pa is accused of thieving, young Louisa is taken in by his accusers, the appropriately named Smirch family. Sour, mean-spirited Mrs. Smirch looks forward to seeing Pa hang. Louisa solves the mystery of the stolen items when she meets a gruff but sensitive... well, I won’t say, but he’s one of the Wee Folk from the Auld Country, far from home on the Colorado plains. A cute and lively read with a satisfying conclusion.

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.