Ara Balears in English - reading

"Men read philosophy or metaphysics books to feel interesting."

Sebastià Vanrell — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 10:07:16 +0000

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.

Closing a book...out of emotion

Maria Llull — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 07:30:48 +0000

Sometimes I'm incredibly lucky to be moved to unimaginable levels by the creations of others. It's a very powerful experience for me. The first time I heard the Sarabande As Handel played, a kind of physical pleasure rose from my legs to the pit of my stomach. My knees buckled, and I had to breathe deeply because I thought I was going to faint. I remember it perfectly. I must have been about 15 years old, and I was watching... Barry Lyndonby Stanley Kubrick. The film mesmerized me, and that music touched every fiber of my heart.

Cognitive inequality

David Abril — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 06:30:47 +0000

Several years after the pandemic, which accelerated the digitalization of society, children are arriving at our schools unable to even maintain eye contact, neither with each other nor with an adult. This is especially true for low-income families, because although screen use affects us all regardless of our circumstances, these families face the greatest difficulties in accessing educational and parenting resources for their children that don't involve the 'easy' solution of staying home and plugging into an increasingly complex screen—be it television, mobile phone, or other devices, thanks to the influence of the internet and social media. These children, like many teenagers, have socialized more with screens than with their peers, which would give them a certain 'mastery' of digital tools were it not for their lack of maturity for responsible use.

Ecce Woman

Jaume C. Pons Alorda — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 18:55:52 +0000

Far from the train Antonia Vicens's novel strikes with unusual force, confirming, page after page, the indomitable talent of an already essential author. La Magrana's publication twenty-five years after the first edition is not only an act of justice, but above all an invitation to (re)discover a work that remains radically relevant. Cecilia's story, immersed in an emotional and physical vertigo marked by AIDS, unfolds with a disarming and visceral intensity: Vicens sugarcoats nothing, offers no protection to the reader, and it is precisely thanks to this naked and stark gaze that a most painful tragedy unfolds, leaving her a monstrous, unspeakable figure. The suffering, the fear, the delirium, the fragility, and the conversations and interactions with angels are not described, they are narrated and experienced in the first person through an incisive, wounding prose that transforms the reading into a raw, profound, and unforgettable experience, a relentless read that—I know this for a fact—is truly remarkable.

Mystical Readings (II): The Primordial Animal Spirit

Laia Malo — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 18:30:22 +0000

We cross, on the back of words, our sea-cemetery and an ocean with plastic banks, to the American continent, where the Uruguayan poet Marosa di Giorgio says mass. On one of her usual walks of observation through the countryside, a god in the form of a deer announces to her that her only destiny is to write poems. In the essay Mystics (WunderKammer, 2025), Begoña Méndez writes that "God, like music, is something that is not understood and only felt." Non-human nature has always spoken to us; when we listened to it, we interpreted it as a divinity, or a previous existence of the soul. Méndez recounts the stories of poets and thinkers who accepted this call, and describes feminine mysticism as "a heretical and dissident practice that restored the sacred dimension to the flesh." The body, the object that contains us, whose physical element we struggle to separate ourselves from when transcending space-time, takes on the function of a medium between life on Earth and the afterlife.

Ten children's books for Christmas

Marta Gil — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 08:41:20 +0000

When winter arrives and the Tió de Nadal (a traditional Catalan Christmas log) starts to get fatter, books become one of the most special gifts: they last, they're reread, they're shared, and they create memories. We've selected ten suggestions for all ages and tastes: classics that stir emotions, picture books to look at again and again, books with cats, adventures to get lost in, and stories that spark conversations. This Christmas, make sure there are plenty of stories to read together.

12 children's and young adult books to get you hooked on reading

Marta Gil Soler — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 06:01:17 +0000

It's always a good time to encourage a love of reading. We recommend several titles for all ages and tastes to get your children hooked on books. This selection was made by Marta Gil, bookseller at El Gat Pelut in Barcelona, specializing in children's and young adult literature.

Juliana Canet and Marina Porras, the miracle of making high school readings sexy

Alba Tarragó — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 11:17:17 +0000

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.