The volume Advances at the frontier of Learning Classifier Systems is already in Springer hands for the final stages of editing and printing. The volume is going to be printed as Springer’s LNCS 4399 volume. You can find the tentative table of contents here.
In the mid 90’s I started reading Quim Monzó-–maybe a after everybody did. The funny history is that I never start reading his articles on the Sunday edition of the Avui. I just learned about him when he started showing up in a talk show at Catalunya Radio, together with Sergi Pàmies. They were hilarious and refreshingly new, something not easy back then. In the last twenty years Quim has made his way into one of the most prevalent figures in Catalan contemporary literature. The other day I just run into a collection of his early articles published on the Catalan newspapers. They were compiled into “El dia del senyor” book. It covers the articles from 1982 till 1985. I am just going over it during my vacations and I cannot belief what I read. Twenty years after, they are still about hot topics in Catalonia. I can just change the actors’ and places for current ones, but most of the topics in those articles are in still today’s newspaper headlines. Maybe the tune never changes much in Catalonia… ...
José Agustín Goytisolo wrote a powerful poem named “Palabras para Julia”. The poem can be found here. Below, the song by Paco Ibáñez sings José’s poem. The mp3 is provided by www.poesia-inter.net.
The smile of Burt Lancaster is small delicious book collecting eleven short tales by Victor Alexandre. The different tales elaborate on eternal human elements. Ambition, despotism, fate, oppression, pride, deception, revenge are some of the few spicing ingredient of his tales. Victor usually writes about socio-political matters, but this book shows an interesting fiction facet of his writing. His tales are powerful and addictive. Once you read one, the next one is waiting and you need to read it. The first tale, “El fabricant de somnis” (The dream maker) gets your attention setting you up for a nice and sweet ending twist. ...
This is the first book I read from Amélie Nothomb (translation here). Daughter of a Belgian ambassador, she was born in Kobe, Japan. The book is an auto-biography of a western girl born in Japan. It fascinated me that it only covers her early years. I felt for her easy fluent, sweet, and charming writing. A fascinating description of the magic Japan she was born in through her young innocent eyes. I cannot erase two episodes from my mind: the struggle to decide the first word to pronounce, and her sadness when she learned that May 5 is Tango no Sekku (the Boy’s festival) but there is no girl’s festival at all. You can find more information about her books here. ...