Seu d'Urgell

Up in the Pyrenees, in a lush valley with the Segre flowing down from the high mountains, lays La Seu d'Urgell, a bishopric since the VIth century, with a magnificent romanesque cathedral dating from the XIIth century, solid, sober and imposing, the fourth to be built on the site. There, protected by these mountains, in these deep valleys, Christendom resisted the Arab onslaught. A string of romanesque churches, nestled in the mountain slopes, testify to the presence of these christian communities, who once belonged to the Carolingian empire. This is where modern Catalonia was born, close to France, far from Spain.

Enrique Vila Matas and Ian McEwan

Enrique Vila Matas and Ian McEwan's latest books – "Dublinesca" and "Solar" – are a joy to read. Both are stream of consciousness novels about men reaching 60. Vila Matas impersonates a retired editor from Barcelona, Samuel Ribas, who goes to Dublin to fulfill a literary fantasy, whereas Ian McEwan slides into the skin of Michael Beard, a womanizing London physicist who glides along on the strength of a Nobel prize won many years ago. Both books are suffused by a light dark humor – the kind that makes a smile hover permanently on your lips as you read – as they depict the disabused cogitations and fantasies of successful males as they watch their powers wane. Ian McEwan is a classic novelist - he tells a straight story with unmatchable fluency in an impeccable style– whereas Vila Matas is perhaps more modern, allowing himself to meander in a forest of literary allusions. In their different ways, however, both Vila Matas and McEwan are able to do something which is always deeply alluring in a novel: enter the mind of characters who are alive now, who think present day thoughts, play with present time toys, and carry on in the cities in which we live in.