Books will always be a refuge. Madrid, 1934. The winds of change are blowing in the Spain of the Second Republic when Bárbara, a young German woman who has managed to flee Berlin after the victory of the Nazi party in the elections, opens a small bookstore. This becomes a place to dream of a free and hopeful future, but the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War threatens to destroy everything Barbara has built. It will be her love for letters and for a young Republican that keeps her clinging to a country that faces a spiral of hatred and terror that she knows all too well and that will force her to fight for her life once again. An exciting and rigorously documented novel by one of the most translated and read Spanish authors in the world. This hopeful and inspiring story in the face of the horror of intolerance is, above all, an indisputable tribute to literature. An exciting and rigorously documented novel by one of the most translated and read Spanish authors in the world. This hopeful and inspiring story in the face of the horror of intolerance is, above all, an indisputable tribute to literature. Books will always be a refuge. Madrid, 1934. The winds of change are blowing in the Spain of the Second Republic when Bárbara, a young German woman who has managed to flee Berlin after the victory of the Nazi party in the elections, opens a small bookstore. This becomes a place to dream of a free and hopeful future, but the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War threatens to destroy everything Barbara has built. It will be her love for letters and for a young Republican that keeps her clinging to a country that faces a spiral of hatred and terror that she knows all too well and that will force her to fight for her life once again. An exciting and rigorously documented novel by one of the most translated and read Spanish authors in the world. This hopeful and inspiring story in the face of the horror of intolerance is, above all, an indisputable tribute to literature.
"This audiobook takes place in 1930s Madrid, where Barbara opens a bookstore that serves to defend beloved literature from the rising Nazi censorship spreading across Europe and the effects of the Spanish Civil War. Narrator Lauren Ezzo's crisp diction makes the story's digressions into complex historical politics easy to understand. In an era-appropriate touch, her narration has hints of the artificial Transatlantic accent employed by 1930s American actors in early "talkie" films like THE WIZARD OF OZ. However, some of the accents she employs in dialogue--for characters from the Soviet Union, Germany, and Spain--sound slightly cartoonish, even in context. V.E.G. � AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine"
