Afternoons with the Blinds Drawn de Brett Anderson (2019)

The trajectory of Suede - hailed in infancy as both 'The Best New Band in Britain' and 'effete southern wankers' - is recalled with moving candour by its frontman Brett Anderson, whose vivid memoir swings seamlessly between the tender, witty, turbulent, euphoric and bittersweet.

 
Suede began by treading the familiar jobbing route of London's emerging new 1990s indie bands - gigs at ULU, the Powerhaus and the Old Trout in Windsor - and the dispiriting experience of playing a set to an audience of one. But in these halcyon days, their potential was undeniable. Anderson's creative partnership with guitarist Bernard Butler exposed a unique and brilliant hybrid of lyric and sound; together they were a luminescent team - burning brightly and creating some of the era's most revered songs and albums.

 
In Afternoons with the Blinds drawn, Anderson unflinchingly explores his relationship with addiction, heartfelt in the regret that early musical bonds were severed, and clear-eyed on his youthful persona. 'As a young man . . . I oscillated between morbid self-reflection and vainglorious narcissism' he writes. His honesty, sharply self-aware and articulate, makes this a compelling autobiography, and a brilliant insight into one of the most significant bands of the last quarter century.

Canto jo i la muntanya balla d'Irene Solà (2019)

 Primer hi ha la tempesta i el llamp i la mort d’en Domènec, el pagès poeta. Després, la Dolceta, que no pot parar de riure mentre explica les històries de les quatre dones penjades per bruixes. La Sió, que ha de pujar tota sola la Mia i l’Hilari allà dalt a Matavaques. I les trompetes de la mort que, amb el seu barret negre i apetitós, anuncien la immutabilitat del cicle de la vida.

Canto jo i la muntanya balla és una novel·la en què prenen la paraula dones i homes, fantasmes i dones d’aigua, núvols i bolets, gossos i cabirols que habiten entre Camprodon i Prats de Molló. Una zona d’alta muntanya i fronterera que, més enllà de la llegenda, guarda la memòria de segles de lluita per la supervivència, de persecucions guiades per la ignorància i el fanatisme, de guerres fratricides, però que encarna també una bellesa a la qual no li calen gaires adjectius. Un terreny fèrtil per deixar anar la imaginació i el pensament, les ganes de parlar i d’explicar històries. Un lloc, potser, per començar de nou; un lloc per a una certa redempció.

The Handmaid's Tale de Margaret Atwood (1985)

L’Offred viu a la República de Galaad, un règim totalitari i teocràtic basat en el control del cos femení per part del govern. En un futur no gaire llunyà assolat per una natalitat en declivi, les dones fèrtils com ella només tenen una missió a la vida: garantir la descendència de l’elit dominant. El seu relat descarnat—a estones fred i irònic, d’altres vehement—desvelarà les tenebres d’una societat que es pretén virtuosa i ens demostrarà que ni l’estat més repressor pot contenir el desig de llibertat. Des de la seva publicació el 1985, El conte de la Serventa ha esdevingut un veritable clàssic de la literatura en llengua anglesa, i és que aquesta sàtira colpidora del fanatisme religiós i el totalitarisme interpel·la més que mai el nostre present i ens fa considerar la fragilitat dels nostres drets i llibertats més preats.

XIII Premi Miquel Arimany

 

Núria Muñoz, de Lleida, guanyadora del Premi Miquel Arimany 2022 de narrativa

Dissabte 1 d'octubre es va celebrar a la Sala polivalent l'acte de proclamació i entrega del premi de la 13a edició del Premi literari Miquel Arimany, enguany de narrativa.

La persona guanyadora d'aquesta edició és:
Núria Muñoz Aige, de Barcelona, amb l'obra 1947.

I han resultat finalistes:
Boix Aragonès, Marc – de Sant Joan de Palamós, amb Crònica gòtica d’una gàrgola
C. P., Elies – d’Olesa de Montserrat, amb La mantis religiosa
Casals Arbós, Josep – de Prades, amb Un mar, un riu
Codina Casals, Pilar – de Taradell, amb I ens vam dir adeu
Díaz Martín, Roser – de Barcelona, amb Susanna
Felip Palau, Blai – de Sabadell, amb Oxigen
Sala Casellas, Esteve – de Roses, amb La tempesta
Suriñach Albareda, Assumpta – de Manlleu, amb L’amic de l’amant del mort
Obradors Caro, Laura – de Sant Joan de Vilatorrada, amb El túnel
Oliva Barceló, Núria – de Caldes d’Estrac, amb De pedra viva
Prat Espelt, Jaume – de Sant Gregori, amb Vallgarriga
Ramada Cervera, Sergi – de Vilamarxant, amb La canya del Papa

Set d'Amélie Nothomb (2019)

 L’Evangeli segons Jesucrist. O l’Evangeli segons Amélie Nothomb. La novel·lista belga s’atreveix a donar veu
al protagonista i és el mateix Jesús qui ens narra la seva Passió.

En aquestes pàgines apareixen Ponç Pilat, els deixebles, el traïdor Judes, Maria Magdalena, els miracles, la crucifixió, la mort i la resurrecció, les converses de Jesucrist amb el seu pare diví... Personatges i situacions ben coneguts, però que aquí se’ns narren des d’un punt de vista modern, amb un to líric i filosòfic i amb pinzellades d’humor. Jesucrist ens parla de l’ànima i de la vida eterna, però també del cos i del present; d’allò transcendental, però també d’allò mundà. Hi aflora un personatge visionari i reflexiu que coneix l’amor, el desig, la fe, el dolor, la decepció i el dubte.

Aquesta novel·la reinterpreta i humanitza una figura històrica amb una mirada potser transgressora, tal vegada iconoclasta, però que no busca en absolut la provocació per la provocació ni l’escàndol fàcil.

Sacrilegi? Blasfèmia? És simplement literatura, amb la força i la capacitat de seducció a les quals ens té acostumats l’autora.

Slam de Nick Hornby (2007)

 “There are many differences between a baby and an I-Pod. And one of the biggest is, no ones going to mug you for your baby.”

“Definitely avoid going out with ugly girls who say they want to be models. Not because they're ugly, but because they're mad".”

“I'd never really had arguments like this before, arguments I couldn't understand properly, arguments where both sides were right and wrong all at the same time.”

“It seems to make a difference to some girls. If you say something that isn't sexist to the right sort ofgirl, she likes you more. Say one of your mates is going on about how all girls are stupid, and you say 'not all girls are stupid,' then it can make you look good. There have to be girls listening, though, obviously. Otherwise it's a waste of time.”

Bedsite Disco Queen de Tracey Thorn (2013)

I was only sixteen when I bought an electric guitar and joined a band. A year later, I formed an all-girl band called the Marine Girls and played gigs, and signed to an indie label, and started releasing records. 

Then, for eighteen years, between 1982 and 2000, I was one half of the group Everything But the Girl. In that time, we released nine albums and sold nine million records. We went on countless tours, had hit singles and flop singles, were reviewed and interviewed to within an inch of our lives. I've been in the charts, out of them, back in. I've seen myself described as an indie darling, a middle-of-the-road nobody and a disco diva. I haven't always fitted in, you see, and that's made me face up to the realities of a pop career - there are thrills and wonders to be experienced, yes, but also moments of doubt, mistakes, violent lifestyle changes from luxury to squalor and back again, sometimes within minutes.

Coal Black Mornings de Brett Anderson (2018)

Brett Anderson came from a world impossibly distant from rock star success, and in Coal Black Mornings he traces the journey that took him from a childhood as 'a snotty, sniffy, slightly maudlin sort of boy raised on Salad Cream and milky tea and cheap meat' to becoming founder and lead singer of Suede. 

Anderson grew up in Hayward's Heath on the grubby fringes of the Home Counties. As a teenager he clashed with his eccentric taxi-driving father (who would parade around their council house dressed as Lawrence of Arabia, air-conducting his favourite composers) and adored his beautiful, artistic mother.

He brilliantly evokes the seventies, the suffocating discomfort of a very English kind of poverty and the burning need for escape that it breeds.
Anderson charts the shabby romance of creativity as he travelled the tube in search of inspiration, fuelled by Marmite and nicotine, and Suede's rise from rehearsals in bedrooms, squats and pubs. And he catalogues the intense relationships that make and break bands as well as the devastating loss of his mother.

Coal Black Mornings is profoundly moving, funny and intense - a book which stands alongside the most emotionally truthful of personal stories..

La volta al món en 80 dies de Jules Verne (1872)

 

El clàssic de Jules Verne traduït per Jesús Moncada.

El 2 d’octubre de 1872, Phileas Fogg fa una aposta insòlita mentre juga a cartes amb els seus companys del Reform-Club de Londres: està disposat a fer la volta al món en només vuitanta dies. Aquell vespre, amb el seu criat Passepartout, emprèn el viatge que l’ha de dur a Suez, Bombai, Calcuta, Hong Kong, Yokohama, San Francisco i Nova York, abans de tornar a Londres. ¿Aconseguirà ser de nou al club el 21 de desembre, a tres quarts de nou del vespre?

Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind de Yuval Noah Harari (2011)

 

Homo sapiens rules the world because it is the only animal that can believe in things that exist purely in its own imagination, such as gods, states, money, and human rights.

Starting from this provocative idea, Sapiens goes on to retell the history of our species from a completely fresh perspective. It explains that money is the most pluralistic system of mutual trust ever devised; that capitalism is the most successful religion ever invented; that the treatment of animals in modern agriculture is probably the worst crime in history; and that even though we are far more powerful than our ancient ancestors, we aren’t much happier.

By combining profound insights with a remarkably vivid language, Sapiens acquired cult status among diverse audiences, captivating teenagers as well as university professors, animal rights activists alongside government ministers. 21 million copies had been sold around the world and the book was translated into 65 languages.

Fermat’s Last Theorem de Simon Singh (1997)

 

‘I have a truly marvellous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.’

It was with these words, written in the 1630s, that Pierre de Fermat intrigued and infuriated the mathematics community. For over 350 years, proving Fermat’s Last Theorem was the most notorious unsolved mathematical problem, a puzzle whose basics most children could grasp but whose solution eluded the greatest minds in the world. In 1993, after years of secret toil, Englishman Andrew Wiles announced to an astounded audience that he had cracked Fermat’s Last Theorem. He had no idea of the nightmare that lay ahead.

In ‘Fermat’s Last Theorem’ Simon Singh has crafted a remarkable tale of intellectual endeavour spanning three centuries, and a moving testament to the obsession, sacrifice and extraordinary determination of Andrew Wiles: one man against all the odds.