In Barcelona, everything runs. Bicycles run along the lane, tourists run along Las Ramblas, notifications run on the mobile, and agendas run through life. The lights announcing Christmas run, the ads promising happiness wrapped in shiny paper run, the discounts that seem unpostponable run, and social gatherings multiply as if time were infinite. However, every December we realize it is not. Time is the scarcest resource in a frantic city.
That's why, amidst this accelerated choreography, there is a gesture that has become profoundly revolutionary: stopping to read. Not buying a book or photographing it to share on social media, but truly reading it. Opening it, breathing it, inhabiting it. Dedicating minutes to it without haste and without guilt.
More and more people are seeking it: young people who discover that a book can be a refuge, adults who close the door to noise and return to pages they once left behind. Everyone seeks the same thing: a moment of calm in a world that wants us permanently available. Reading is the new luxury. But a luxury that is not bought: it is conquered.
Reading Barcelona: a city that also needs a pause
This year I have read books that, in one way or another, carried Barcelona within them. Some explicitly; others as an underlying heartbeat. Among my most significant readings is We have gotten lost, ofPatricia Martínez del Hoyo, a generational portrait that speaks of bonds that tighten and searches that seem to have no end. It's easy to recognize oneself in its characters, perhaps because all of us, in this Barcelona that never stops, feel that we get a little lost along the way.I also had the pleasure of treating myself to a walk through Barcelona with Hoy, by Agustina Guerrero, a graphic novel that is a hymn to the present moment and to small, relegated rituals. An invitation to explore the Ciudad Condal with different eyes and at a different pace. And between trips and coffees, Matriz, by Sofía Brotons, reminded me that stopping to create can be a therapeutic gesture. I keep one of its scenes: Greta buying oils near Enric Granados to express what she couldn't say with words.
And Mujeres bien, by Pilar Eyre, which portrays an elegant and contradictory Barcelona, full of social layers and invisible stories that deserve to be told. Her women, strong and vulnerable at the same time, are a mirror in which many readers can see themselves reflected.
There are books that portray Barcelona and books that reveal it. The latter stay to live with you.
My refuges: where Barcelona lowers its intensity
An accelerated city needs places where time stops, even if only for a little while. Spaces that become personal refuges; mine are usually bookstores. Llibreria Onais a place that reminds me that beauty can also be tranquil. There, every corner invites you to get lost in a book or simply to stop without further pretensions.La Central del Raval will always be an oasis in a neighborhood full of haste and contrasts. It is a bookstore that listens, that welcomes, that invites you to get lost without rush. Its sister on Mallorca street is not far behind; I love to order a coffee on the second floor and pretend I have all the time in the world. And Finestres is modernity and avant-garde: a space to share a tea with a good friend, a kind silence, and handwritten recommendations by its booksellers that help me discover stories outside the algorithm. Each of them confirms that Barcelona is not only lived; Barcelona is read.
And if we talk about refuges, the Gabriel García Márquez Public Library is an absolute privilege. Sometimes I go alone, fleeing stress and anxiety. Other times, with my children, because there are loves—like that of books—that deserve to be inherited. Their curiosity in discovering stories is one of my greatest gifts.
Giving ourselves time, giving ourselves calm
With the holidays just around the corner, I wonder what I really want. I don't need more objects:I need time. I don't want more noise: I want more pages. I don't want more haste: I want more stories. Because reading is a way of coming home, even when we are far from ourselves. Stopping to read is, today more than ever, an act of emotional resistance.The book that will accompany me this Christmas
This holiday season I already know what story will shelter me:Learning to fly with broken wings, ofLola Gulias.I've known Lola for years, with a long career as a bookseller and editor, and it excites me to see her now debut with such a luminous and deeply human novel.The story of four women who meet in a bookstore-café in the Eixample. All are around fifty. All carry losses. All believe they have hit rock bottom until they discover that it's never too late to start over. It is a novel about friendship, sorority, resilience, and that silent power that books have to heal us when life disarranges us.
It's no coincidence that it's my choice to close the year. Deep down, we all need someone—or some book—to remind us that even with broken wings, one can fly. And that, sometimes, it's enough to open a page to get back up.
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