Lucas, a musician and translator, comes home one day to find a cryptic postcard on his doorstep. This postcard sets in motion a series of bizarre, seemingly interconnected events, leading Lucas and his girlfriend, Nuria, to be kidnapped by a religious cult with roots stretching back to the thirteenth century. Seeking guidance from a fire-eater, a band of mythic roof-dwellers, and his deeply skeptical friends, Lucas must figure out who to believe-or who can believe him. In his internationally acclaimed debut, Richard Gwyn takes us on a gripping ride of faith and deceit through Barcelona's Gothic Quarter. From the Trade Paperback edition.

A monumentally informed and irresistibly opinionated guide to the most un-Spanish city in Spain, from the bestselling author of The Fatal Shore. In these pages, Robert Hughes scrolls through Barcelona's often violent history; tells the stories of its kings, poets, magnates, and revolutionaries; and ushers readers through municipal landmarks that range from Antoni Gaudi's sublimely surreal cathedral to a postmodern restaurant with a glass-walled urinal. The result is a work filled with the attributes of Barcelona itself: proportion, humor, and seny—the Catalan word for triumphant common sense.

Over the course of his distinguished career, Robert Hughes wrote with brutal honesty about art, architecture, culture, religion—and himself. The Spectacle of Skill brings together some of his most unforgettable pieces, culled from nine of his most widely read and important books, alongside never-before-published pages from his unfinished second volume of memoirs. Showcasing Hughes’s enormous range, this indispensable anthology offers a uniquely cohesive view of both the critic and the man.