Begins April in difficult and uncertain circumstances that the publishing world also suffers. In the month of the book the mandatory stay at home has led us to look at shelves, to all those who have been there since we remember. Shelves that have been filled with copies whose provenance we have already forgotten. Books of our fathers or those that we have been acquiring. Books that already they have no owner because they already belong to everyone and are part of the house. Books that maybe we have not read yet, despite seeing them there all my life. Books of very careful collections or pocket. This is a review of some from them. They are my house, but they can be anyone's too. Y they always accompany. In war and peace.
Old collections
Salvat, Alliance, Mill, Readers' Circle, Chair, Austral... Any of them produced a more or less careful collection. In my house - and surely in that of many - is the most recognizable of Salvat, with titles classics of world literature. There are also those of Christie Agatha, in his most famous pocket collection, which was that of Editorial Molino. Or those of Austral, especially titles of spanish authors. His pocket Don Quixote is a condensed edition prodigy, but one that can hardly be read. They have been renewing the editions, but they have left the same design.
Even that magazine, now classic too, which was that of Selections from Reader's Digest (still working), launched an edition in book format of novels or stories, like the one you see there, which included The pool of blood, one of the short stories of Plinio by Francisco García Pavón, or Love Story by Erich Segal.
Special mention are the heavily crafted, hardcover binding collections, with that sepia heavy or very very thin paper, and beautiful inner edition. They were normally intended for such universal classics as the auspicious de Goethe, the best works of Molière or great Russian authors like Gorky.
Essential classics
They are not missing on a shelf or in a house. In any edition and format.
The Decameron
The unique tales of Boccaccio, more unique now, where another pandemic ravages the world. Who knows if now other stories that will be the Decameron of the XNUMXst century are not being written - or told.
Ana Karenina
If there is no Tolstoy on a shelf, there is no shelf. And if there is, it is the story of Countess Ana Karenina or the monumental Guerra y paz. I prefer the count Vronsky more than beating the copper in Austerlizt, really.
The power and the glory
Nor can it be missing Graham Greene. With this title or with the acquaintance Rebelion on the farm, by George Orwell, who is also around, we put the share of novels with a critical-social component.
Michael Strogoff
Julio Verne You can fill an entire shelf with your novels. And the story of the bravest courier of the Tsar is one of the most entertaining.
Fuenteovejuna
Don Lope de Vega left the cry, which was historic, of an entire people crying out against the abuse of power. But he also left more comedies to make up for, like La dama boba o El Perro del Hortelano.
The Divine Comedy
And to close with another Italian classic, we will always have Dante Alighieri and their eternal descent into hell, to remind us that they are still there.
A bit of everything
From the Kama Sutra a gone With the Wind, to Mr. Capone is not at home. The verses of Federico García Lorca with those of the Ballads Spanish or with the Satyricon. Traveling by Don Quixote's route de Azorin and the Castilian fields of Ax. The tribulations of Diary of a retiree of Delibes and the hazards of the saga of The Dukay scored by Lajos Zilahy. Or the philosophy of The critery of Jaime Balmes coexisting with that almost autobiography and sample of the Objectivism of Ayn Rand en Those who live. Hundreds of stories to choose from.
I always read with great interest «Actualidad literatura", that's why I dare to consult a title that caught my attention today, "Animal Farm": isn't it by George Orwell? I don't see it as being authored by Graham Greene...