Good Background book on Spain...
 

A Vanished World... Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Spain by Chris Lowney.

Its a very readable book that gives great information and back ground into Spanish history.

A couple of years ago I came across The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón set in Barcelona.I am amazed that this has not as yet been made into a movie.
This summer I read Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones set in 14 century Barcelona.What a read!
Now I'm reading The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón.Again it's set in Barcelona!
Finally a book that was a little tough to read but still worthwhile A Forging of a Rebel by Arturo Barea.It is the author's autobiography in 3 parts and starts off with the loss of his father in WW1 and then his family trying to survive in Madrid.His mother takes in laundry and does it in the Manzanares river.He gives great details of his struggles during the Civil War. Interesting thing about this author is he left Spain and lived in England with his second wife who translated his books into English.He worked for the BBC and never returned to Spain.This book had to be published in Argentina in 1951 but in 1990 it was made into a TV series in Spain.It's great to be able to identify the streets/building in Madrid that he grew up in and worked.

While we were in Spain I was reading Dogs of War by James Reston Jr. I met up with an instructor from the U.S. Naval Academy in Cordoba who vouched for its accuracy. It certainly helped me to understand the country a little better.

Mitchener's Iberia is a classic.

No background of Spain would be complete without including the rich history of the Basque. I found Mark Kurlansky's "The Basque History of the World" extremely interesting, especially when you consider the impact the Basque people have had on Iberia and the world, including today’s ardent interest in great Basque cuisine.

The Basque, with thanks to the Vikings, reached North America hundreds of years before Columbus went before Isabel and Ferdinand and then navigated and manned Columbus’s ships to the new world. They were innovative shipbuilders, sailors and the first whalers, enterprising merchants and bankers and the first to circumnavigate the world when Juan Sebastián Elcano, a navigator from Getaria (Guipúzcoa), took over when Magellan was killed in the Philippines.

Without the Basque, Spain’s history, and, as a direct consequence the world’s, might be somewhat less colorful.

The Basques working with the Vikings? that is anew twist on history I have not heard before
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/vikings.htm
http://www.columbusnavigation.com/discover.shtml
http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-D...ca-49891.shtml

Not much of a twist. The Basque have always been good at adapting to new technology and improving upon it. The Vikings where good at building longboats but they had a bad habit of sinking in rough seas. And if you review history, you'll find that the Norsemen made a few visits to the Basque coast, Cantabria, Asturias and Galicia over the years.