There are episodes in history that, when they occur, "prove decisive for centuries and centuries," recalls Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) in one of his most emblematic books, The Right Moment: Great Moments in Humanity, which can be read in Catalan thanks to the translation by Maria Pous for Quaderns Crema in 2004. This is the reading that Regina Rodríguez Sirvent (Alp, 1983) recommends for this summer. The author of Popcorn at Dawn, a novel published by La Campana that was the best-selling this Sant Jordi and continues at the top of the lists of best-selling fiction books in Catalan, has chosen the most famous essay by the prolific Austrian author, also known for short novels like Letter from a Unknown Woman (1927) and biographies such as Marie Antoinette (1932). "I like it so much that while I was reading it, I thought I would have liked to have written it," she assures.

"From noon until three in the afternoon a darkness spread over the whole land." With these words theGospel according to Matthew explains the agony of Jesus Christ on the cross. During these hours of darkness, which exaggerate the duration of a solar eclipse, the messiah endures the suffering in silence until, shortly before dying, he lets out a final cry of despair: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

The youth of Roger Bastida (l'Hospitalet de Llobregat, 1990) does not prevent him from enjoying contemporary Catalan classics such as Pep Coll (Pessonada, 1949), the author recommended to read this summer based on one of his emblematic novels.

Gothic literature became popular in the late 18th century and spread nightmares among readers for much of the 19th century, with well-known examples such as Frankenstein (1818), by Mary W. Shelley, Wuthering Heights (1847), by Emily Brontë, The strange case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), by Robert Louis Stevenson and Dracula (1897), by Bram Stoker. Two centuries later, Núria Gómez Gabriel (Barcelona, 1987) and Ingrid Guardiola (Girona, 1980), writers, university lecturers and art curators, have set out to revive Gothic "anachronistically and queer to speak of those feminine emanations of a supernatural, morbid, mysterious, tremendous, and even abject character, which have resisted opprobrium, defamation, or extreme violence". The protagonists of the essay they have written on the subject four-handed, Gothic feminism (H&O Editorial, 2026), are writers like Virginie Despentes, Mariana Enriquez, Dolors Miquel, Mónica Ojeda and Samanta Schweblin, but also filmmakers like Sofia Coppola and Julia Ducornau and artists like Louise Bourgeois, Paula Rego and Remedios Varo.

When we ask Ferran Garcia, which has won one of the latest Llibreter Prize thanks to the novel Sau (Weeds, 2025), a book recommendation for summer reading, takes a while to find the ideal title: "First I thought of telling you Great Expectations, of Charles Dickens, in Carner's translation, because I consider it a perfect book, and the translation, too – he says. Then, the most beautiful book I have ever read, "Peter and Wendy –also known as Peter Pan–, by J.M. Barrie. But, finally, I think I'll tell you one of those I reread the most, a beautiful bramble bush from which, if you enter it, it is absolutely impossible to emerge unharmed".

Kavinsky, one of the most international figures in French electronic music, known primarily for the massive success of his track Nightcall –included in the soundtrack of the film Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011)–, has been found dead by the French police at his home in Paris, as reported by the French newspaper Le Parisien. Police are investigating the possibility that the death is a consequence of a stroke, as in preceding days the musician had suffered very intense headaches. Vincent Belorgey, his real name, was one of the stars of the closing ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games, where he performed a version of Nightcall with the French band Phoenix and the Belgian singer Angèle.

"The sound of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra is unique in itself, and we must add to it the sonority of the theatre's pit where it usually plays," comments Katharina Wagner (Bayreuth, 1978), great-granddaughter of the composer of the tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelung and controversial stage director, who has found a gap in her extremely tight schedule – the 150th edition of the Bayreuth Festival, which she currently directs, kicked off on July 24 – to visit the Palau de la Música Catalana, where she has presented the "exceptional" tour that will begin in Barcelona on August 29. This is a co-production between the Palau and the Peralada Festival, which this year celebrates its fortieth anniversary.

The Institute of Ilerdenc Studies (IEI) has incorporated this Tuesday the oldest piece in its library with the donation of the incunabulum Philosophia pauperum, printed in Lleida around the year 1485 by the typographer Enric Botel. The work, an extraordinary bibliographical rarity, becomes part of the legacy of the bibliophile Ramon Areny Batlle after his great-nephews, Maria Àngels and Àngel Boixareu Carrera, have ceded it to the institution.

If the Odyssey of Homer deserved two translations by Carles Riba – and later versions by Joan Alberich, Joan F. Mira and Pau Sabaté–, the Iliad, the other great epic poem by the author from ancient Greece was also tackled on two occasions by Manuel Balasch, on one occasion by Joan Alberich, on another by Montserrat Ros and on a final one, for the moment, by Pau Sabaté. Montse Barderi, novelist, journalist, philosopher and collaborator of the 3Cat program La Selva,recommends the version by Montserrat Ros (1944-2018), where he worked for more than a decade while, in parallel, editing the books of the Bernat Metge Foundation.

"Love knows no borders": this was the banner that Queen Máxima of the Netherlands held up this Saturday during the massive party and demonstration of Amsterdam's Pride Day, making her the first European queen to participate in and lead a march in favor of the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community.

Besides being one of the most popular footballers of the moment thanks to the goal that gave Spain victory against the Argentine team to the football World Cup final, Ferran Torres has also inspired the Valencia Oceanogràfic, the largest aquarium in the European Union, to name one of its grey sharks, of the species Carcharhinus plumbeus. The decision has been made as a recognition of the footballer's connection to marine conservation and to raise societal awareness about the importance of protecting these fish with cartilaginous bodies and rough skin. "We want to reinforce the message that these animals are emblematic and indispensable for the functioning of ecosystems," the institution states in a press release.

"I want to live with Luis for the next 30 years, even if the last ones are, as they popularly say, with a bit of a struggle", assured the Catalan journalist Susanna Griso – presenter of the morning magazine Espejo público on Antena 3 – shortly after announcing her wedding to the businessman and economist from Madrid, Luis Enríquez. Although they have known each other for more than two decades, it wasn't until a year and a half ago that the two friends became a couple, and they have chosen the Costa Brava as the setting for the double celebration of their wedding.

A year and a half after Anagrama "indefinitely suspended" the publication ofEl odio,, in which Luisgé Martín (Madrid, 1962) collected the letters he exchanged with José Bretón, who is serving a prison sentence for the murder of his two children, the Madrid-born author has announced the publication of a new book with Altamarea in which he will give his version of events and which will arrive in bookstores on September 30.

With La gran família (Club Editor, 2025), the writer and editor Antònia Carré-Pons (Terrassa, 1960) has won the last Òmnium award for best novel of the year. An avid reader of new releases and classics, Carré-Pons is clear about which book to recommend for this summer: Cosdiví, by Theodore Sturgeon, which Males Herbes has published in Catalan with a translation by Josep Sempere.

If summer is "the promise that life can begin again", as Francis Scott Fitzgerald assured, a good way to accompany this restart can be reading. The good health of the Catalan publishing sector makes it possible for us to undertake a multitude of journeys – geographical and temporal – without leaving home. We select ten intrepid books that have arrived in Catalan bookstores in recent months.

A Greek island whose name we never learn is the idyllic setting where Erietta (Acantilado, 2026) unfolds, the debut as a novelist by Clara Pastor (Massachusetts, 1970) after having published two short story collections. The author, translator, and editor – she is the soul of the exquisite Elba since 2009 – explains the summer that Fiona, a middle-aged woman who has just divorced, spends in a rented house, trying to put her life back together. Among men who desire her and others who disappoint her, Fiona meets a solitary and wise woman who acts as a grandmother without being one and has a very particular relationship with her son.

"I try to write every day, never to fail", said Josep Vallverdú in 2022, months before turning 99, when he presented one of his latest youth novels, The Eighth Dwarf (La Galera), in which he imagined an alternative version of the popular Snow White. For more than six decades – the ones separating The Fish Seller (Arimany, 1960) and Treasured Silence (Pagès, 2023)– Vallverdú dedicated himself to building, with admirable constancy, rigor, and heterogeneity, one of the most prolific works – exceeding 200 books – in contemporary Catalan literature, which this Tuesday closes with his death at 103 years old, as the ARA has been able to confirm. Death comes to him months after publishing The Return of Rovelló (La Galera, 2025), in which he revived one of the most beloved characters of his work, that of a little dog who got lost in the middle of the woods.

"Today is an important day for the authors of our country, because the entities that represent them have joined together to promote a shared publishing contract model that is more transparent, balanced, and respectful", announced this Monday at the Ateneu Barcelonès Sebastià Portell (ses Salines, 1992), president of the Association of Writers in the Catalan Language since 2022, during the presentation of the initiative he has promoted and to which eight more entities have joined, representing a total of more than 4,000 authors. "The main objective is to improve the conditions of our representatives, which in many cases are precarious", he added, accompanied by representatives from PEN Català, the Association of Writers of Catalonia (ACEC), the Professional Association of Translators and Interpreters of Catalonia (APTIC), and three playwright associations: the Catalan, the Valencian, and that of the Balearic Islands. The initiative, a pioneer in the State, has encountered a first hurdle, that of the publishers, who "for the moment have refused to be part of the conversation".

Joan Salvat-Papasseit (Barcelona, 1894–1924) had a short and difficult life, but more than a century after his death he is still remembered thanks to his avant-garde, direct and transparent verses, collected in books such as L'irradiador del port i les gavines (Tallers Atenes A.G., 1921) and El poema de la rosa als llavis (Llibreria Nacional Catalana, 1923). "The love for Salvat-Papasseit has nothing to do only with the emotional quality of his poetry, but with those who kept the flame of his memory alive," argues editor Jordi Cornudella – who recovered his Poesia completa at Edicions 62 in 2024 – during the presentation of an essential volume to bring back to life the author's work, Sobre Salvat-Papasseit i altres escrits, by Tomàs Garcés (Barcelona, 190–1993).

Both grew up in the same Barcelona neighborhood during the last third of the 19th century, studied fine arts at La Llotja, were part of the same artistic group –la Colla del Safrà– and, later, excelled in the portrait, pictorial or literary, of a parallel, vibrant, and marginalized reality, that of the Roma people. "How is it possible that such close friends were never mentioned together in the press of the time?" asks Julià Guillamon (Barcelona, 1962) in relation to two of the characters who have obsessed him for decades, the painter Isidre Nonell (Barcelona, 1872-1911) and the writer Juli Vallmitjana (Barcelona, 1873-1937). This question has led him to dedicate a magnificent 700-page essay to the two creators, written in collaboration with Joan Mar Sauqué, Nonell, Vallmitjana i els gitanos (Edicions de 1984, 2026), and to showcase the relationship between them, little studied until now, in an exhibition at the Fundació Palau de Caldes d'Estrac, which can be visited until September 27.