Englishman in Madrid (Paperback)

from Dokfintong

Readers keep asking why this book won a prestigious Spanish publishing award. It is an OK effort but really too goofy to take seriously. You can read the online discussion for yourself, I am not going to rehash it here. Yes the book is interesting and yes it is goofy. How can the protagonist be s...

from Ameise1

This was an interesting read. Anthony Whitelands, a gentleman and art historian (specializing in Velázquez) travels to Madrid in 1936. Actually, he is supposed to assess a picture that is with an aristocratic family, but he gets caught in the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War. He is spied on by th...

from MariaAlhambra

Excellent farce set in the spring of 1936 in Madrid, during the build-up to the Spanish Civil War. Using a lost Velazquez painting as his McGuffin, Mendoza creates a satisfyingly baroque romp around a typical outsider figure, the middling British art historian Anthony Whitelands. There are some e...

from MariaAlhambra

Excellent farce set in the spring of 1936 in Madrid, during the build-up to the Spanish Civil War. Using a lost Velazquez painting as his McGuffin, Mendoza creates a satisfyingly baroque romp around a typical outsider figure, the middling British art historian Anthony Whitelands. There are some e...

from Eyejaybee

I bought this novel as a bit of a stab in the dark - I found myself with nothing else to read on a rainy day in Sheffield (Yes! It does rain in Sheffield!), and this was the only book that appealed from the rather meagre selection at W H Smith's on the Station. At first I thought I was encounteri...