A Day in Bookland

The Overstory is divided in four parts. The first one introduces us, individually, to the entire cast of characters. In the consecutive parts of the novel their stories unravel and at the same time come together. This is not an easy read. It was quite tedious and repetitive at times in my opinion but the beautiful language (and here I have to shout out the impressive Spanish translation by Teresa Lanero) and the story that Powell wanted to tell made me turn the pages. I will be honest and say that I asked for the Spanish translation for my birthday because I felt very intimidated by the original text and I’m glad I did because I would’ve probably dnfed this if I had read it in English. The Overstory is a thoughtful novel and it demands from its reader. It is a novel to reflect on our reality. The trees do not need saving (“As if forests were waiting all these four hundred million years for us newcomers to come cure them.”) Nature knows best; she adapts and regenerates...

Say hello to my new favourite classic. How Green Was My Valley tells us the story of the Morgans, through the point of view of Huw, one of the children of the family. Set in a mining community in rural South Wales, the author addresses quite a lot of issues. The most important is the fight of the miners to get a better life, the creation of Unions to try and fight the masters who took advantage of the workers because they either worked for less than minimum wage or they starved. The fight between progress and nature and how the relationship between them is shifting and how humans have forgotten to respect her. Religion also plays a big part in the lives of these miners and their families but there is a lot of criticism as well personified in the character of Mr. Gruffydd, a preacher himself. Llewellyn also addresses the problems a small village has when it comes to gossip and how reputations can be destroyed in a blink of an eye. He exposes the misogyny of the time and how women...