soledad penadés

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Foyles is a big independent bookshop. It is in Charing Cross Road, quite near the St. Martins Art School which I mentioned before when talking about their funky displays. So maybe because of that, or not, they try to have original displays as well. The current ones can be viewed until 15 october and feature lots of skeletons in the most original situations. While it can look a bit morbid for spanish people it is funny for me and trust me, they caught my eye instantly. Delirious, take a look (and sorry about the mirror effect but I did my best):

An skeleton riding a bike, dressed like a doctor

The Skeleton Judge

And finally the studying skeleton. Somehow it's the one that I like more, it reminds me to myself when I got stuck in a couple of subjects in the uni and thought that I would be old and still wouldn't have passed those subjects. See its desperation face, holding its head with the left hand, poor it!

I was reading The lord of the rings, and then I came across that part where Pippin and Gandalf meet Denethor for the first time. And then Pippin resolves to pay obey to Denethor, gives his sword to Denethor and then says these words:

Here I do swear fealty and service to Gondor, and to the Lord and Steward of the realm, to speak and to be silent, to do and to let be, to come and to go, in need of plenty, in peace or war, in living or dying, from this hour henceforth, until my lord release me, or death take me, or the world end. So say I, Peregrin son of Paladin of the Shire of the Halflings.

This can only be seen in a book: you are faced with a lord and then promise obey with this whole paragraph which obviously you're improvising, and it sounds so natural…!

It's amazing I didn't realise this the other times I read LOTR. Re-reading books in the original language it's proving to be a very interesting experience. 100% recommended :)

Siempre me ha hecho ilusión tener algo con ISBN (a mi nombre, es decir). Como no recuerdo exactamente si el libro que publicaron hace años con un relato mío tenía ISBN, y ahora Fernando Tricas y Antonio Tausiet han montado un registro manual de IBSN: Internet Blog Serial Number, no he tardado ni un segundo en ir a por el mío, que es… IBSN 1-111-1337-11

En cuanto tenga un rato lo pondré bien visible para que podáis referenciarlo siempre que haga falta ;)

Actualización: lo he arreglado… gracias JCL!!

Salió una noticia hace tiempo en algún periódico inglés (ahora mismo no recuerdo cuál era). Básicamente la profesora de uno de los colegios con mejores resultados académicos dijo que pasaba olímpicamente de los planes de estudios, y que en lugar de estudiar tan sólo fragmentos de los libros, los leían al completo. Y la verdad es que me dejó huella, porque la entendí perfectamente.

Cuando iba al colegio, me desesperaba el hecho de que sólo se leyeran fragmentos de las obras. Así no puedes entender los libros, ni "caer enganchado" en la trama que ha ideado el escritor. Los fragmentos sueltos, fuera de contexto, pueden hacer incluso que malinterpretes el propósito o la temática de un libro. Ojo, que no digo que no sea mala idea utilizar un extracto para por ejemplo, hacer análisis sintáctico, en lugar de los típicos ejemplos chorras: El gato juega con la pelota; sujeto: gato, verbo: juega… ya sabéis…

Pero si lo único que lee la gente son esos extractos, nunca serán capaces de leer cosas más extensas, les parecerán tareas interminables, eternas: el típico lamento tan escuchado en la universidad de "¡Mierda ¡Tengo que leer 30 páginas! ¡Me voy a morir!"

En esto también entra en juego la educación casera: si en su casa no se le enseña a las personas que leer es bueno, sino que exhiben actitudes despreciativas respecto a la lectura y todo lo relacionado con ellos, obviamente no se le puede reprochar a un profesor que no motive a sus alumnos para que se lean un libro. ¿Cómo no va a tener una actitud de rechazo hacia la lectura alguien si en su casa el único libro que hay es un Don Quijote edición especial numerada con tapas bañadas en oro… utilizado como elemento decorativo en el recibidor? ¿O alguien que escucha comentarios tal que "ése tío es un empollón cuatro gafas, rata de biblioteca, todo el día encerrado con la nariz entre los libros"? Cualquier persona oye eso de pequeña, de parte de sus padres, y lo repite como un loro hasta que se lo cree, porque lo dice mamá/papá.

Así que esta profesora no sólo ha tenido los ovarios de dar lo que le ha parecido más sensato, sino que además ha tenido una suerte impresionante. No sería fácil repetir la experiencia en una clase repleta de nengs o de chavs (los nengs a la inglesa ;) … y sí, ¡el nombre viene de chaval!)

Ya me hubiera gustado a mí encontrarme más profesoras así, ya, en lugar de la perla que no me repartía el libro para la lectura semanal si me veía llevando otro (¡mío!) en la mano, tal que "ya tienes uno, ¿para qué quieres otro? ¡ah! ¿es tuyo? bueno, da igual, con uno basta"…

Today I finally managed to go to my old neighbourhood, Notting Hill. First stop, Bayswater. I just went there to do some shopping on a Westbourne Grove shop, but it was closed. Anyway, I took a bus and headed Notting Hill Gate, where my favourite bookshop is. It is a small shop where LOTS of books are piled, but it is not messy at all, excepting the ultrabargain boxes, where you can get books for one pound or even fifty or twenty five pence. That's it, for my dear euro currency users, something like 1.5 euros, 0.75 or 0.38 euros.

Don't think in advance: these books are ok. I don't have a clue about where do they get them - but I presume they might buy the remaining stocks from other sellers and then resell them, at very low prices. Which is good, as I do read quite quickly, and I am now developing the ability to do the same in english.

I already have been there twice. First time I bought one of my favourite books: Dracula, by Bram Stoker. I had read it before, but in Spanish, and I wanted to find out how was it written in its original language. It was very funny to read how Doctor Van Helsing spoke english with a strong Dutch accent, his weird grammatical constructions and so on. It is also very interesting to check every place which is located in London, now that I know almost all these places: Piccadilly Circus, Liverpool Street Station… (apart from the fictional locations, of course). And I also liked to discover some facts about Bram Stoker's life, which influenced him when he wrote his books.

Second time I went, I just spent some minutes around the shop and just took the first book which looked attractive. This time it was The Cybergypsies (here is another non-amazon article about the book), by Indra Sinha. And was quite weird, it was the story about about something that not always we have been aware of: all the people which used modems to create point to point communities and relationships, away from BBS's and similars, on those famous MUD's, everything in a semiautobiographic way. Superfunny parts of the books were the descriptions of the home made tools those early hackers built for their Atari's, which allowed them to fight faster in their text-based online games. So if you weren't were good at typing quickly, you still could code your own cheating tool which would type the fighting commands for you, thus allowing you to earn more points and increase your level in the game.

And I hadn't been there for some months as I had been very busy moving home, as some of you might know (if not, you can read the story as well), but today entered the door again and started looking for something from Arthur C. Clarke. I have read a pair of books from Clarke before, but as in Dracula's case, I wanted to see how was the original writing style. First I started looking for Rendezvous with Rama, one of my favourite sci-fi books, so I could compare and also refresh my memory (as I think last time I re-read the book was five years ago). But couldn't find anything… I was just giving the battle as lost and already had chosen the first book which looked attractive (for just 50p! how cannot a book look attractive?), when I gave a last inspection to the sci-fi area and discovered a Rama II book. Woh! I had been looking for that one years and years in Spain… each time I went to a bookshop they never had it.

So I got it and the other one, whose author and title were completely unknown for me, for £3.50. That's simply great! As I don't need to read what everybody is reading (examples: The Da Vinci Code, Bridget Jones Diary), usually priced at around £18, and love to discover new authors, this bookshop is like a little treasure.

If you go to London, don't forget to visit it!