When I was little, an adult tried to snap me out of some fanciful thoughts I was absorbed in and shouted at me, "Life isn't a movie!" The phrase upset me so much that I still think about it several times a week, even though I'm 31. I don't know if life is a movie or not. The older I get, the less certain I am. In any case, it happens very often that daily life strives to resemble a film production, one that I find rather cheap and excessively dramatic. I suppose that's why I enjoyed reading Bristol boardFrom the French author Jean Echenoz (Orange, 1947), published by Rayo Verde. Not only because the main character is a mediocre filmmaker and much of the plot revolves around his work, but also because of the parallel between the ordinary human gaze and the cinematic gaze.

I read about a commotion Don't bother answering me (Empúries, 2026), the book that collects the letters that were sent Salvador Espriu and Joan VinyoliThey are not particularly poetic, political, or socially contextual letters. They are personal lettersThe messages exchanged between two friends to celebrate life's triumphs and lament its sorrows and disappointments. In total, they contain forty letters from Espriu to Vinyoli, eight from Espriu to Teresa Sastre (Vinyoli's wife), and only seven from Vinyoli to Espriu.

I've often wondered where my ideas come from and what happens if I change them. I'm always open to doing so: give me a solid reason why, and I'll hesitate. Let me think about it for a while, and maybe I'll take your advice, or maybe I'll end up right back where I started. Over the years, I've realized that my way of understanding the world has deep roots, stemming from a thread of thought that predates me and will outlive me: tradition, history, and the language that verbalizes it all.

We're facing the final weeks of the year, and with the start of 2026, new resolutions will begin. Perhaps, on some wish list, there's an item that says: "Write the book once and for all." A few days ago, at the Guadalajara Book Fair, I moderated a panel of Catalan women writers who have published their first novels. The participants were Maria Canelles (Against nostalgia, Editorial Angle), Montse Albets (Only earth, only rain, only mud(Ediciones del Periscopio) and Regina Rodríguez (Panties in the sun(The Bell). Of everything they said, which unfortunately wasn't recorded, I remember a few ideas that will surely be useful to those people who, this New Year, are thinking of finally getting down to that damned novel.

It's three in the afternoon in Guadalajara, Mexico. One hour until... Joan Manuel Serrat He's giving a talk at the Book Fair, and outside the room there are about a hundred people queuing. Inside, the chairs are almost full. A mother and daughter are chatting with two women about how much they admire the speaker. At one point, one of them mentions the surname "Serrat," and the others are taken aback: they thought the queue was for Richard Gere, who's speaking later. "That's why they said he was so handsome!" one of them points out. "Well, Serrat is very attractive too!" the older woman chimes in, and they all laugh. Gere's fans leave the queue, but there are still too many people: the organizers hold up a sign that saysCapacity is full"And there's a generalized 'Oh' that starts out denoting sadness and turns into bad temper.

"It's hard to see and say where the desire for liberation, to be free from oppression, ends, and where the desire for freedom, to live a political life, begins," says one of the many phrases I've underlined from The freedom to be free, of Hannah Arendt (Linden, 1906 – New York, 1975). This is a compilation of three articles published by Eumo Editorial, translated by Laia Font i Mateu and with a prologue by Fina Birulés, slightly ahead of the 120th anniversary of the political philosopher's birth, which will be celebrated next year.

This summer I read the novel The story (Quaderns Crema) by the Italian author Elsa Morante (Rome, 1912-1985), and it's mid-September and I still haven't forgotten it. It's a masterclass in writing, social commitment, and observation of life; one of those totemic books in the history of literature that I, personally, didn't know about, and that Quaderns Crema has published in our language this year 2025. Marina Laboreo was responsible for translating the novel into Catalan, resulting in a text that flows naturally and naturally, despite the mischievous representations of language it contains (for example, the exercise of translating a small child who is not entirely refined in his speech and who constantly shortens words; a fact of no small importance in understanding not only the entire personality).

With summer vacations approaching, it's time to decide: what do you fancy more, the sea or the mountains? This question sometimes becomes a question of identity: are you more of a water or dry land person? Whenever someone presents this combination, I think the experience of many Catalans is the middle way: neither sea nor mountain; some of us are forest and pool people. Others, plain and marsh people. In any case, the combination of soaking and shade is usually the goal of anyone who wants to overcome the hot season. Whatever you decide, I recommend a book about dry land and a book that has a certain aftertaste of salt water and that, while we're at it, reminds us of the absurdity of valuing our territory only when we have vacations.

The book had been out for a few months In the land of wonders (Ángulo Editorial, 2025), by philosopher and professor Eulàlia Bosch, haunted my house. Unconsciously, it approached and moved away: the day it arrived, its colors insisted on being on the dining room table; at dusk, it waited patiently for an opportunity on the nightstand; the next day, with the arrival of a new book, it found itself displaced to the office desk. Days pass, and there are readings that never find their moment, until you finally start them and understand why you've always kept them close, taking an erratic walk around the house, avoiding relegating them entirely to the pile of pending titles that deep down you know you'll never read.

One of the first things I learned to do when I was a teenager, and my parents finally put a chunky computer on my bedroom desk, was to figure out which set of three keys to press to make the programs I was using suddenly close. That way, when I heard my mom's footsteps approaching my door, with a flick of my wrist I could quickly make that blog I had when I wasn't allowed to blog, or that messaging app I used to chat when I wasn't allowed to chat, disappear.

A few years before we entered the 21st century, the free market expanded throughout the world. We call this phenomenon globalization: a historical period in which countries became interconnected like never before, capitalism became the hegemonic economic system, and technology facilitated the strengthening of supraterritorial ties, generating exchanges that had a direct impact, for example, on the industrialization of territories or the use of languages in everyday life. These days I'm wondering: can we now speak of globalization in the past tense?

Last Wednesday was Saint Joseph's Day, and apart from thinking about the burning, my father and all fathers also came to mind, of course, although I haven't had to make any effort to think about it lately. And not only because of the usual marketing for Father's Day, which we've never celebrated as such in my house, but because three books I've read (all three new releases) made reference from the start, in one way or another, to the father figure.

In one of my childhood memories, I picture a friend and I frightened in the middle of a demonstration in defense of our town's natural aquifer. I also remember my friend's aunt looking at us all overwhelmed, not knowing how to get rid of us, huffing and puffing and saying: "You are at the age of turkey."The expression is not correct in Catalan (Optimot recommends saying "the age of the cake"), but that doesn't mean that we didn't find it very funny.