In an ascending manner, the editorial field welcomes thoughts that are more than two thousand years old to help human beings think and transform their here and now. The list of this type of books is endless, but to begin the reader could consider How to Listen: Classical Wisdom in Times of Dispersion (Rosameron), in which Daniel Tubau collects the vision of the classics on the importance of listening to connect with the other. Specifically, there is an ancient philosophical current that is the star right now, as reflected in Roman Stoicism, by Javier Gomá, Carlos García Gual and David Hernández de la Fuente: wise men who examine what was said by Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, and how these have the formula of good living through virtue and reason.
There is no loss in such a trip, but in case there are any doubts, just go Heading to Ithaca. A trip to ancient Greece in search of philosophy (Shackleton Books), by Víctor Luis Guedán. There the first steps of Western philosophy were taken: Thales of Miletus, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Protagoras, Socrates, Diogenes of Sinope, Plato, Hippocrates and Aristotle. Frédéric Lenoir would surely be pleased with these developments given his Philosophy of Desire. Manual for living fully (Ariel) in which he uses thinkers such as Spinoza, Plato or Nietzsche. This book aspires to guide us in correct actions that lead us to self-realization. And Gabriel Lara de la Casa has done something similar in Literature on the surface: Find the key to your happiness in the great classics (Cúpula).
In some way, all these classical authors mentioned are exemplary, so to speak with the concept that the aforementioned Javier Gomá has worked on in Universal concrete: Method, ontology, pragmatics and poetics of exemplarity (Taurus), where he studies this concept responding to “ What is there in the world, what to do with what there is”, and recapitulates the theory of exemplarity that has made him one of our most followed thinkers. About all this, and about different issues related to today’s world, Gomá talks with La Vanguardia journalist Pedro Vallín in Penultimate Truths (Arpa), the third title with which the Bilbao-born philosopher attends this year’s Sant Jordi festival.
Another work in the line of seeking ways to train ourselves away from these times of disorientation is The School of the Soul: From the way of educating to the way of living / L’escola de l’ànima: From the way of educating to the way de viure (Acantilado / Quaderns Crema), by Josep Maria Esquirol.
Certainly, philosophy or literature can become a life guide and a professional dedication. That captures I was born on a rotary press. The cultural enterprises of José Ortega y Gasset (Tecnos) by Ignacio Blanco Alfonso, around the journalistic side of the famous philosopher.
And speaking of journalism, we have Gaziel for a double game: Literary Talks (Fundación Banco Santander), with essays on writers; and What kind of people are we: Four essays on Catalonia and the Catalans (Dieresis) where he questions the new vision on the history of Catalonia that emerged from the Renaissance.
Continuing in a Catalan key, let’s quote Joan Santanach Suñol and Per abastar una estrella, a study of Jacint Verdaguer’s poem Cant de Gentil and its various variants. Alfred Bosch, for his part, in Obriu pas!: The epic of those who fought to the extreme for Catalan (Columna), talks about the origins of Catalan since the time of the troubadours, with special emphasis on the Renaissance, with their great figures.
Of course, it is also worth attending to James Salter with Elsewhere (Salamandra), a collection of his traveling reports around half the world from his time as an aviator soldier. Likewise, his compatriot Neal Cassady stars in The Letter from Joan Anderson. The holy grail of the beat generation (Anagrama): a story that the author sent to Jack Kerouac and that was key for him to write his greatest work.
For his part, Pau Luque delivers Ñu (Anagrama), in which he combines story, autobiography and philosophical notes to talk about strange characters and cities like Barcelona, ??Genoa or Mexico City. And it is also a mixture of styles Les cendres de Pasolini (Lleonard Muntaner), by Jaume C. Pons Alorda, with articles, stories or poems.
Next, let’s penetrate difficult environments. In Metaphysical Animals (Anagram), by Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman, about the relationship of four English philosophers who challenged their academic world. Georges Nivat, in The Solzhenitsyn Phenomenon (Ediciones del Subsuelo), explores the life and work of the author who suffered so much in the Soviet gulag, while Francisco Uzcanga presents The Impossible Symbiosis. Jewish writers in interwar Germany (Baltica).
In short, there is no doubt that all the authors mentioned would be extremely interested in The Strokes That Speak. The triumph and abandonment of handwriting (Ariel), in which José Antonio Millán reviews ways of writing from five thousand years ago in the face of today full of keyboards. A very topical issue, like what Antonio Monegal exposes in The Silence of War (Acantilado), in which he observes how war has penetrated our tradition; how we are still at war, or will be.
