Life in Culebrón

In 2004 Spanish bookshops were intimidating places. Berlin Wall like there was nearly always a counter and the books were behind it. They were protected by someone, invariably older, invariably stern, Dickensian even - villainous Dickensian. There were shelves too, sometimes in the Allied Zone, but without apparent order. Lots of the shops were dark and dusty with piles of books. The organisation of the books was a secret known only to that formidable bookshop employee. As well as looking sinister the person behind the counter spoke Spanish. Another big hurdle. But I'd decided early on in my Spanish adventure that reading in Spanish was a good way to tackle the language so these obstacles had to be overcome. After a couple of bad buys, panicked into buying some Spanish classic with impenetrable prose, I decided to try something I'd already read in English. I'd been told that translated books were often easier to read. Hemingway, and his short sentences seemed like a good p...

Spain is bespattered with Chinos, Chinese owned shops. There are two principal types. One is like the old British corner shop where the family work all the time. It opens late, it sells sweets, pop and stuff plus basic food and all sorts of things that seem a bit out of place - piles of flip flops in over brittle and discoloured plastic bags piled on top of the crisp boxes. Here in Pinoso we don't have one of those. Our 24 hour shop, or it may be shops, are Spanish run.  We do have two Chinos though; ours are the sort that sell everything except food. There are tools, cleaning products, stationery, earphones, phone cases, reading glasses, clothing, cleaning products, photo frames, light bulbs, pet supplies and a trillion other things. We Brits love them. We can hunt around the shelves looking for whatever it is rather than having to mime and splutter to, for instance, the person behind the haberdashery shop counter, "Err, I don't know how to say knicker elastic in S...

I was sitting in the garden. I had my feet up and a beer in one hand and an electronic book in the other so I was reading and drinking or drinking and reading. Maggie pounded past every now and then following that couch to five kilometres programme. One of the cats looked on. I like books as things. I always think of bookshops as being precise; very neat. They often have a lovely smell too. Fan the pages as you sniff or just breathe deeply as you browse. Nowadays Spanish bookshops are much like British ones - easy access shelves and an impossible range of classifications which only make sense to the person who chose the labelling system. I mean is Philip K. Dick's Rick Deckard in a detective or a sci-fi novel? Not so long ago Spanish bookshops used to be much more difficult, much darker, very Dickensian, musty even. They had men with pince-nez behind wooden counters acting as gatekeepers to the shelves piled high with books at their backs. Old style Spanish bookshops had almost...

"You use a lot of continuous tenses in your books. Is there any particular reason for that?". It's an interview on the BBC Radio 4 arts programme, Front Row, some twenty years ago. The author was from the USA, he was pleased. "Being interviewed in England is just so great - you want to talk about my use of grammar!". When we first arrived in Spain I wanted to try reading in Spanish but bookshops used to scare me. They usually had counters and the books were on shelves behind the counter. If you wanted to buy a particular book it was fine. You just asked. In Spanish. Of course they never had the book but you were hooked now, you had to order it, wait two or three weeks and then be shocked by the price. Spanish books are expensive. If you wanted to browse then tough luck. Slowly that changed. Faced by online sellers lots of traditional bookshops went to the wall, despite price protection, and the survivors became more self service. In the newer shops you could...

Once upon a time we lived in Ciudad Rodrigo in the province of Salamanca more or less on the border with Portugal. It was a lovely spot but it was a long way from home and, to be honest, it was a long way from anywhere. Our nearest hypermarket was about 120kms away in Salamanca City and the nearest Mini dealer was in Portugal. At the time I commented on the difficulty of buying a book in a bookshop in Spain. Since then I have bought and read quite a few books in Spanish and I usually have a list of books that I want to read; I am catching up on a culture after all. The routine now, when I go into a bookshop, is to have a quick look where I think the book may be, and then, when it isn't, summon up my courage and ask. I wanted to take a couple of books on holiday. I'd heard a programme on the radio about an author called Carmen Laforet and one of hers sounded good. We were going to an area in Spain called the Alcarria and there was another book, written in the 1940s ...