Spanish NewsBites Blog

In Patagonia

Patagonia is a bit of an obsession with me, and there's a good article over at the Guardian's site which is guaranteed to whet your travel appetite. Time to dust off a couple of old Patagonia tomes - this one, by Bruce Chatwin, of course, and this one, by W.H. Hudson - a bit thick on the philosophizing for some tastes, but worth it for the anecdotal passages. Meanwhile, I've been lending people a very enjoyable novel called This Thing of Darkness by a Brit, Harry Thompson, whose first novel it was and who sadly died after it was published. It's basically about Charles Darwin's Patagonian journey, mixed in with the life story of one Robert Firzroy, and there's a lot of wonderful Patagonian description in it. Not challenging - just highly enjoyable.

Meanwhile, over at Spanish NewsBites, recent items have included pieces on the Colombian muso Juan Luis Guerra., the Moros y Cristianos fiestas in Spain, and Madrid's White Nights. Spanish NewsBites: the language and the news wrapped up together, for your convenience and sheer pleasure.

New posts on SNB Alert

New posts over at Spanish NewsBites: Argentinian identity, the discovery of ancient cities in Brazil and why Ibiza might be about to lose its reputation for fast partying are among recent posts. Many of our entries to date have been for intermediate and advanced level students, so we're upping the ratio of beginner-level materials this week. Remember to let us know what we can do to make SNB better: spanishnewsbites *at* gmail.com is where to go.

The film based on the book is hardly ever better than the original, and José Luis Cuerda's Los girasoles ciegos, just released in Spain, is a good example of that. The novel, however, comes close to being a masterpiece of the post Civil War, and it's now available in English.