"... a lively and impassioned study of Barcelona today..."

Eaude threads his narratives between literary quotes, historical details and a critical look at one of the most highly reputed European tourist destinations. Eaude shares with other veteran Hispanophiles the wish to use writing to smash the stereotypes that the English still hold about Spain.

El Pais

Partly a jauntily erudite guide to the city, partly a sharply written history, Eaude's book excels at spiking his deft snapshots of squares, bars and sites with flavoursome fragments of Catalan lore and literature. Unlike other Barcelona boosters, Eaude knows how hard the road from Franco to freedom proved, and shows us the marks of that struggle...

Boyd Tonkin

Michael Eaude's Barcelona - part history, part guide, part cultural commentary - is a highly personal overview of the city by someone who has lived there for over sixteen years.

...Eaude both loves and is proud of what he considers to be his home town, yet, like many Barcelonians, he is also a bitter critic of the extravagant claims sometimes made for it, not least by its own institutions.

...a lively, impassioned study of Barcelona today, which is sensitve to its oft-belittled Catalan identity and abrasive with those - and they are legion -who would like to see it sanitized into a bland "world city".

Matthew Tree