Books

The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway (1926)

This classic American novel follows Jake Barnes, a World War I vet who works as a journalist in Paris, and Robert Cohn, a Jewish ex-boxer. Set in Pamplona and considered to be Hemingway's first significant novel, it depicts life for the "Lost Generation" after World War I.

The Seville Communion, by Arturo Pérez-Reverte (1998)

When a computer hacker breaks through Vatican security to send an urgent plea to the Pope, Father Lorenzo Quart investigates. The message concerns a 17th-century church in Seville. Though Reverte's elegant mystery thriller begins in the Vatican, it is mostly set against the backdrop of contemporary Seville's historic churches, neighborhoods, and orange-scented gardens.

Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Andalucia, by Chris Stewart (2001)

Whether it's scorpions, runaway sheep, or droughts, English sheep shearer Chris Stewart has his fair share of headaches after moving to an isolated farmhouse in the mountains outside of Granada, Spain. Publisher's Weekly wrote, "His hilly farm is a harsher place than Peter Mayle's Provence or Frances Mayes's Tuscany, and the local cuisine far less appetizing, yet his unfailing good humor and invincible optimism carry him past obstacles that would send most readers scurrying for home."