Automatically translated from Basque, translation may contain errors. More information here. Elhuyarren itzultzaile automatikoaren logoa

Readings for this year

  • At the beginning of the new year, we seem to be renewing our ideas, and some of us make lists of tasks to be carried out. One of those tasks is the list of books that I have to read, an increasingly fatter list. Not a few of you have asked me what I read, so I thought I would make this list known. As I have just learned that the Hontza library of Donostia is looking for follow-up, today I also write about my books with heartache.

20 January 2025 - 05:00

I have all these books at home, some of which are starting to read and some of which I haven't touched. When you write a book, it's hard to read, at least that's how I live it; I often think my eyes ask me to rest. Thus, the list becomes increasingly fat, because those who have bought with enthusiasm and started reading await me on the shelf.

The book Zuza Zaken Slavic Kitchen Alchemy, nourishing herbal remedies, magical recipes & folk wisdom is the first. The book gathers what the Polish grandmother taught her, a broad culinary tradition, but without great differences between food and medicinal herbs.

Aina S. I also have to finish the book The women who made us see the wonderful world of the plants of Viriditas de Erice and Amanda Mijangos. It was given to me by Uxoa Iñurrieta who made the translation and I found it especially beautiful, in the absence of a few pages I think I am in a moment to finish.

There's also a treasure that I've found in secondhand bookstores, a book that's almost my age. William A. Oh my God! Thomson's Enlightened Practice Guide to Medicinal Plants is the most common and usable title of the work. Today it serves to see what is at this time, also to know the fame of other medicinal herbs not so long ago; I think it will serve me to see how this evolution has happened.

In Katakrak I discovered Gótico Botanico, tales of a perverse verdor of the editorial Impedimenta. It is a catalogue of stories by authors who have read the vegetable world from fantasy. Nathaniel Hawthorne or Road Dahl are some of the best known, but there are also books by Mary Elizabeth Counselman, Eli Colter or Maria Moravsky. From now on, the green will be the new black on the back, as many times the authors show in their stories a nonsensical sinister verdor. In the 19th and 20th centuries, many people saw plants as mysterious and beneficial and deadly beings, a little away from the present fascination.

The traveling tree, by Michio Hoshino, is the latest on the list. The editorial highlights that it brings together aspects such as ecology, mysticism, love of land and car discovery. Something will have, as it leaves in the 72 edition. The author is a photographer who took the subject of nature, who died by a brown bear when working in Russia on a commission – which has not happened to us on my order, but burned the claws of Dani Blanco and Ibai Arrieta who was lost in the lavender field.

And when I feel compelled to rest from medicinal herbs, nature and “my subjects” I will continue reading Hetero de Uxue Alberdi. Contrary to custom, I started reading backwards and we will continue swimming in cold waters. Because the strands between fiction, life and what (is becoming) are many and varied in this plot we call reality.


You are interested in the channel: Landareak
2025-01-20 | Jakoba Errekondo
Basque Country banana republic
I know two friends who have never eaten a banana, a self. But people are in favour of separation. Banana is a genus of plants originated in Africa and Asia (Musa x paradisiaca), but today in America it is also done a lot. The largest producer is India and the main exporter is... [+]

2025-01-20 | Garazi Zabaleta
Per unit
"Ours is a test space for regenerative agriculture and for collective projects"
In order to train us in agriculture and to test oneself in production and marketing before starting your own projects, several agricultural test points are already in place. In Álava, the Centro de Test Agrícola de Alea was launched in 2023, but, compared to most similar... [+]

2025-01-20 | Iñaki Sanz-Azkue
A frog that loves the cold
The leaves of the trees have fallen and the soil of the forest is covered. However, between the earth and the red leaves there is a thin layer that receives little attention, but which can be of great importance for the survival of many species. It maintains moisture, attracts... [+]

Forest plantation with native species begins on Sunday in Arrankudiaga-Zollo
The owner of the plot has signed an agreement with the Lurgaia Foundation and the environmental group Sagarrak has made an appeal to join the plantation. The students of the Zaraobe Institute worked on Tuesday in tree planting.

2025-01-13 | Garazi Zabaleta
Caserío Urteaga-Urkulegi
Vegetables, fruits and meat, diversification as the basis of production
Urteaga and Urkulegi are two neighbouring villages of Itsaso (Gipuzkoa), which joined together years ago and launched a joint project. “We put the two houses together and started the production project, and since 2011 I have been working with total dedication,” explains... [+]

2025-01-13 | Jakoba Errekondo
Do not smell
The nose tells the truth. It's hard to fool your nose. You can't avoid smell. The exciting, exciting, exciting study of the pathway of nasal connection to the brain is for many researchers. If the bridge between smell and memory is not the fastest, it is one of the fastest. An... [+]

Bagera, we too, always happy... the angle not so much.
When 180 million years ago the continent of Pangea dismembered, the eel had learned to cross the Sea of Thetis. Since then, the continents have been moving and differentiating eel species. Among the 20 species of eel that have distinguished themselves from their original... [+]

2025-01-08 | Garazi Zabaleta
Aina Socies Fiol
"In each island of the Balearic Islands there are many varieties of plants that do not exist in the others"
Many of them will join the Balearic Islands only with Oporleku, but on the island of Mallorca they have a living movement around agroecology and consumption: The Associació de Varietats Locals de Mallorca (association of local seed varieties) is an example of this. In early... [+]

2025-01-08 | Nicolas Goñi
How do you turn soils into weather aids?
Extreme drought and rainfall have become a new norm. Among the increasing economic and ecosystem damages, those sustained by cultivation are not the lowest. These are soils that desiccate in times of drought or that cannot absorb all the water in large rains. How to become part... [+]

January, the dream of the walnut
I painted with purple color the first month of the year, with the color of creativity, imagination, knowledge and spirituality.

2025-01-06 | Jakoba Errekondo
The need to live with each other
A Chilean friend has told me a story about his village and left me a mouth full of implants. It is from a plant there known as “quintral”, Tristerix corimbosus. It lives in the warm forests of southern Chile and Argentina, and the plant is very similar to the tongue (Viscum... [+]

2025-01-06 | Garazi Zabaleta
Trebatu Association
Project to boost relief in the primary sector in Gipuzkoa
The Trebatu association has been in operation for years in Ipar Euskal Herria, with the objective that those people who want to start this project can be trained beforehand. Taking as a model the project of Ipar Euskal Herria and pulling the same idea, in Gipuzkoa the... [+]

2025-01-06 | Nagore Zaldua
Cantabrian calm
Works of art of the warning
Colorful, bright, in shapes as strange as beautiful, nudibranchs seem to be coming beings from another planet. These naked creatures of the seabed dress the vivid colors of the crests of the 1980s and the architectural fashion of the great names of the Parisian seam.

2024-12-27 | Leire Ibar
The success of the champagne industry is based on exploited labour
The Guardian newspaper analysed the situation of migrants working in the champan industry in Épernay, France. The study reveals the precarious and illegal conditions of those working in vineyards of luxury mushroom brands.

2024-12-23 | Jakoba Errekondo
Pea hearing
We will soon have delicious pea tears all year round (Pisum sativum). But it is still winter and spring, the season of fresh peas almost entirely; now begins the planting of the last peas we will eat in spring. And now we're going to eat those who sowed towards October.

Eguneraketa berriak daude