Recent Books (3)

Dunlop, Fiona. The National Geographic Traveler—Spain. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2001.

National Geographic Society is the world’s largest nonprofit scientific and educational organization. The author of the book, Fiona Dunlop, is an expert in travel writing about the Spanish culture. In this book, Dunlop describes the atmosphere in a poetic way that captures the essence and the aura that is so specific to the Spanish fiesta culture. She also specifically talks about different fiestas in different regions including the festival of the Moors and Christians, the Running of the Bulls, Semana Santa, Los Mayos, Los Tres Reyes, Carnival, Las Fallas and San Isidrio. This book would be an extremely useful source for any journalist covering this topic for several reasons. First, the book is a guide book written for foreigners. Dunlop does a great job explaining cultural aspects that would be easy for a visitor to understand. Secondly, this book would be great because it has other helpful sections that would aid a journalist during his or her research. Some of these helpful sections include illustrations, pictures, vocabulary explanations, and phone numbers of important contacts.

Rambow, John D. Fodor’s Spain 2006. New York: Random House, Inc., 2006.

Fodor’s is an organization that provides travel and tourism information. Fodor's has produced guidebooks to more than 300 destinations worldwide. The Spain guide book, by John D. Rambow, would be a helpful source for anyone interested in information about the Spanish fiesta. It has an extensive list of festivals in many different regions of Spain and provides important information about each. The festivals are listed in a table separated by the seasons. Rambow mentions five winter fiestas, five spring fiestas, seven summer fiestas, and three fall fiestas. The festivals are accompanied by dates, as well as smart traveler tips for attending these festivals.

Simonis, Damien. Barecelona. Melbourne: Lonely Planet Publications, 1999.

Lonely Planet is the largest independent travel publisher in the world. It has published more than 500 titles in eight different languages. The author of the Lonely Planet Barcelona book, Damien Simonis, is a travel writer and has works published for Lonely Planet about Jordan and Syria, Egypt and the Sudan, Morocco, North Africa, the Canary Islands, and Spain. This particular book focuses only on the Spanish city, Barcelona, in the region of Cataluña. This book is important for journalists studying the topic of the Spanish fiesta because Barcelona is one of the most important cities in the country, with a rich fiesta culture. This book separates the Barcelona festivals by months of the year and lists and describes ten festivals throughout the year that are specific to Barcelona. This source would be helpful for the journalist researching the broad topic of the Spanish fiesta, but it would be particularly helpful for someone focusing on the interesting city of Barcelona.