My book club is reading A Bookseller in Madrid this month. The author, Mario Escobar, is new-to-us. A citizen of Spain and writing in Spanish, his books come to us in translation into English. I have only read one book by Escobar — The Librarian of Saint-Malo. I loved it! So I had high expectations for his latest novel released in the US. I have to say I was a bit disappointed. The novel is told in the first person voice of Barbara Spiel, a German who leaves Nazi-Germany to open a bookstore in Madrid in the years that include the Spanish Civil War. What she hoped would be a haven for ideas, turns into a nightmare as foreign actors, along with the various clashing groups turn the country into a terror-filled existence. If you want to know more about the Spanish Civil War, Escobar goes into a lot of detail about this dark time in Spain’s history. I wanted that, but I wanted more about how books brought hope and healing. A lot was said about how books do that, but there just wasn’t a lot of it played out in the lives of the characters. More telling than showing, if you know what I mean. Barbara faces a lot of danger and incredibly hard experiences which fill the pages of the last half of the book. The story picked up for me then. But I was left with the feeling that something was missing. Was it the book itself or the translation that caused this? I don’t know. One very bright spot was the faith that was expressed by Barbara and others in the book.
If you want details of the Spanish Civil War and its effects on ordinary people, then maybe you should read A Bookseller in Madrid. Otherwise, I heartily recommend The Librarian of Saint0-Malo.
Audience: Adults.
(I purchased this book from Amazon. All opinions expressed are mine alone.)
How can the words of the past help heal the horror of the present?
For as long as she can remember, Barbara Spiel has always found solace in books. Born in Germany and having come of age in a tumultuous era, she flees her home country as the Nazis rise to power in the early 1930s. Her destination? Madrid. There she’s determined to realize her long-held dream of opening a bookshop and creating a safe haven for young idealists and independent thinkers to come together to transform the world.
Yet Spain isn’t immune from its own troubles. The winds of change are blowing through both city and countryside, and it’s impossible to predict what will happen. When the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War puts Barbara and everyone around her in peril–including the Spanish Socialist parliamentarian she’s fallen deeply in love with–the terror and hatred seem all too familiar. It’s like Germany all over again, only with its own cast of extremist characters.
Hounded simultaneously by Stalinist checas, Francoist Facists, and the German Gestapo, Barbara fights to keep her bookstore the safe haven that she’s always imagined it would be. But with war brewing both inside Spain and outside its borders throughout the entirety of Europe–and beyond–Barbara isn’t sure who exactly she can trust, or if people really are who they claim to be.
A story told with tremendous heart and astonishing historical accuracy, A Bookseller in Madrid is ultimately a story about dreams–dreaming with courage when nothing seems to make sense, and dreaming with hope when words printed on a page are all you can hold on to.
Mario Escobar has a master’s degree in modern history and has written numerous books and articles that delve into the depths of church history, the struggle of sectarian groups, and the discovery and colonization of the Americas. Escobar, who makes his home in Madrid, Spain, is passionate about history and its mysteries.
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