That Saint George has taken flight in recent years is a fact that is noted every April 23 in Palma. If last year two caparrots were premiered there, confirming its character as a traditional festival, this year the festival has begun almost a week earlier with a prior fair in the neighborhoods of the City. Nevertheless, the momentum of Book Day has also been felt outside Palma: throughout the Balearic Islands, numerous bookstores are preparing since February for one of the most important days of the year.

Palma celebrates this Sant Jordi with more spaces, more activities, and the inclusion of flower shops. Under the slogan ‘Sant Jordi, books and roses everywhere’, the celebration takes a step further this year in its expansion and aims to reach more points in the city.

Júlia Mérida (Inca, 1995) holds a degree in Musicology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and teaches at the Felanitx high school. A passionate reader and successful podcaster, she is now launching a book club in Manacor, this Thursday at the Món de Llibres bookstore. Gratitude, by Delphine de Vigan (Ediciones 62, 2021), as a touchstone for a prosperous path of community literature. We talked for a while.

Quart Creixent officially launched its participation in the project supporting independent bookstores, spearheaded by Abacus and La22 of Girona, this Thursday. The event, held at the bookstore, drew around one hundred people and highlighted the central role of independent bookstores in the cultural life of the island and the country. The initiative had been previously announced and was officially presented to the community this Thursday.

Libraries have once again made headlines, and this time, for reasons that have little or nothing to do with their function or operation. The latest issue is the report that the Palma City Council will produce—at the suggestion of Vox and with the support of the People's Party (PP)—to determine how many books in the municipal catalog are in Spanish and how many are in Catalan. According to the far-right party, Spanish books are in the minority in Palma's libraries, especially in the children's and young adult sections, an anomaly that should be corrected, they say, to protect users' linguistic rights. This is the same argument the PP has used to justify including Spanish in literary competitions, to guarantee "the freedom of local authors" who wish to participate. However, of the six prizes in Spanish awarded at the Palma City Awards since 2023, none have gone to a local author, and only one out of five in the Mallorca Prizes has been awarded.

Abacus is closing its Palma store with the aim of concentrating its activity on the island through the historic Quart Creixent bookstore, thus strengthening "an independent bookstore with deep roots, a long history, and a strong cultural commitment." As detailed in a press release, this decision coincides with Quart Creixent joining the project led by Abacus Cooperativa and La22, an initiative supporting the network of independent bookstores. The bookstores explained that this new alliance will allow them to share resources, experiences, and tools to consolidate a strong network of bookstores, capable of facing the challenges of the sector and ensuring the continuity of cultural projects with their own distinct identity. Anna Nicolau, the project director, emphasized that "this new phase seeks to both highlight and reaffirm the essential role of independent bookstores as cultural meeting points, spaces for debate and social cohesion, and as a spearhead in promoting reading and knowledge throughout the community."

I went down the airplane stairs and crossed the terminal to the baggage carousel, barely taking my eyes off the book I was holding. I sat down directly on the floor because I wanted to know how it ended. BlindnessSaramago's dystopian marvel. I didn't object to the unorthodox punctuation because I was immersed in that indescribable feeling of when a book grabs you by the collar and takes you wherever it wants. When I regained consciousness and closed the flap, my suitcase was the only one spinning in an eternal return. I felt the emptiness, accompanied by the need to find another book capable of generating that connection; the one you feel with a film, a series, a record, or a work of art.

In 2019, Natalia Castro (Mahón, 1989), from Menorca, posted a tweet saying that if the world were to end, she would spend it writing a thesis on the apocalypse. And it was precisely during the lockdown the following year that she finished an investigation that has led to... The end-of-the-world partyThe latest winner of the Anagrama Essay Prize, this Princeton University professor reviews the social configuration of the last twenty years in Spain from urban, historical, and cultural perspectives, all permeated by an apocalyptic vision. Eurovegas, the 15M movement, and COVID-19 are explained through the lens of Susan Sontag. Mad Max and the play Bankers vs. Zombies, among others.

The arrival of September means an almost complete change of display windows in most bookstores in the Balearic Islands: the flood of new titles arriving for Catalan Book Week, an event taking place in Palma from September 17 to 21 in the Misericordia Gardens, grows year after year, although it's still far from the unmatched wave that's arriving. Among them, there are also an increasing number of titles with ties to the Islands, whether through the author, the publisher, or the subject matter, confirming the healthy state of literature produced in the Archipelago. This is the ARA Baleares selection, made from among the dozens of new releases that will fill the displays of this literary event once again this year.

The recently renovated Misericordia Gardens will host the 36th Catalan Book Week 2025 from the 17th to the 21st. This event is organized by the Mallorcan Booksellers' Guild. The following publishers will have exhibitors: Editorial Moll, Lleonard Muntaner Editor, and AdiA Edil.

Swhere many people take advantage of their vacations to delve into all kinds of reading, whether it's the latest new releases that have just arrived in bookstores or the classics they've had their eye on for years. And while the usual ways to choose summer reading continue to work, such as asking booksellers for advice, recently consulting Goodreads has gained traction, a platform with more than 150 million members around the world who rate and review the books they read.

There are numerous examples of novels, poetry collections, and comics that have not only been set in the author's immediate surroundings but have also been used to reflect on these scenarios from very diverse perspectives, such as Antònia Vicens's '39° a la sombra' (39° in the Shadow), the bulk of Gabi Beltran's poetic work on the Costa del Sol, and Bartomeu Seguí's. However, there are also those who have decided, at one time or another, to leave the local context and place their works in coordinates that, apparently, have little or nothing to do with the Islands.

This Thursday, July 10th, a good handful of young people were queuing at six in the evening at the Drac Màgic bookstore in Palma. It wasn't to buy the latest new release or to meet a trendy author. It was to listen to a conversation about a classic of Mallorcan literature in Catalan. Béarn or the doll room, by Lorenzo Villalonga. Many, surely, wouldn't have believed it if they'd been told in high school that it would be there, and not at the beach, on a summer day. But that's the effect. Tandem Club. Juliana Canet (Cardedeu, 1999) and Marina Porras (Rubí, 1991) are the hosts of this multi-format 3Cat program about literature that has sought to break the barrier between television and podcasts to also create a reading club from different bookstores throughout Catalonia. After broadcasting the eighth and final episode, focusing on the figure of Villalonga, Canet and Porras closed this first season in Palma, where they announced that they will return to talk about Blai Bonet in the second season of the program, which they are already preparing.

The week ahead, with Jordi Garrigós

Some of the things we hope not to miss in the next seven days

I'll start the grief caused by the separation of the Zoo listening MalifetaThe project of Valencian guitarist Arnau Giménez and Mireia Matoses (of Pupilas). After releasing songs created during the pandemic, when they lived together and composed, their first album has just been released. MythologyA compilation of tracks they've been working on for the last three years, now finally released. Perfect for making you miss Pancho and company a little less, because there's rap and love for the band here too. blessed.

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This week we want to recommend a wide range of activities for the coming days. You can choose from the Winter Circus at the Ateneo Popular de 9 Barrios, Christmas getaways, a laugh about parenting with a show by Miriam Tirado, or delving into the adventures of Geronimo Stilton, among others.

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