A jewel is anything of extraordinary value. And that value can come from memory, from the trajectory or from the authorship of a unique piece. Laura Cendrós' library is full of object books. Many had belonged to her father, the businessman, patron, cultural promoter and editor Joan Baptista Cendrós. They have been arriving at the apartment where she has lived for 32 years and in whose hall, in a display case, there are miniature cars, caganers and snuff bottles, among other collections. In the studio, the material he collected for the exhibition that the Palau Robert dedicated to Cendrós, the biography that Genís Sinca did – El cavaller Floïd – and a bookstore in the family home, sold in 2006. There, he dedicated the afternoons of the Saturday with his four daughters: they watched Laurel and Hardy or Tom and Jerry movies that he brought from the United States with a projector, and he let them enter his library – a sanctuary – and read the children's books that he had in a closet.
Among lithographs of Ubu aux Baléares, in the hallway are the bound ones. For example, the volumes of Christmas cards his father sent and the responses he received. Or those books that she binds in Josep Cambras because they are special and have contributed something important to her; Underneath they preserve, of course, the cover, the back cover and the spine. She is Mentre agonitzo by Faulkner, Truman Capote or El perquè de tot plegat dedicated to her (by the way, Quim Monzó doesn't like it at all, that she binds books). She has framed a stamp with the yellow ribbon that Carles Puigdemont gave her, and at the top is the complete work of Josep Pla. There is a little bit of everything in the room. Cendrós knows quite a bit where everything is, with exceptions: she had been looking for a first edition of Rayuela that she had for years. He found her the other day. And he has lost her again.
Almost each book has its story and the author's handwriting, in the form of a dedication (Triadú's, full of sarcasm, "but they loved each other very much with my father"), in the form of a letter (the editor of Aymá y Proa corresponded with Henry Miller, on blue airmail paper; they were never seen), in the form of an original (in the case of Pablo Neruda's Geography, in green ink) or even as indications: Espriu noted on each page of a notebook where he wanted the poems from a reissue of Les cançons d'Ariadna. “It had that letter with which you have to take a photo and enlarge it to be able to read it”, very small, all in capital letters. In fact, he used the checkbooks of a brother of his who worked at Assistència Sanitària to write on the prescriptions.
From his father, Cendrós also has books from the collection of bibliophiles and Dau al Set, Amor de Cirlot, with a collage made by himself, another unique piece. And next to the television, on the shelves of her husband's books - many from Porsche -, some that Miquel Plana (and now his son, Elies) make with an old printing press: Edgar Allan Poe or La vaca cega in English. On the side, a portrait of Cendrós' granddaughter, Siena, while reading. And below, art books: Miquel Barceló, Plensa-Macbeth-Verdi, Plensa-Estellés, the Miró de Altaió, the magazine Cave Canis or the Great Book of the National Art Museum of Catalonia. Behind the sofa, under the orange-colored spines of Proa, much poetry, Carner, Foix – a low number from a short edition of Sol and grief –, the Divine Comedy. In the bedroom, the Óssa Menor collection and, next to the bed, books by Vinyoli, Margarit and Casasses. Read mostly before bed and on weekends, never on Kindle. "But I also look at Instagram, we don't fool ourselves." The novels cost him; he likes epistolaries and biographies the most, poetry above all. He buys the books in Montse Úbeda, in Ona de Gran de Gràcia. They give him gifts and he gives away books. For his birthdays, to his son Igor, often because he has asked for them: a dedicated copy of Solitud from 1946, another by Ferrater, La rosa als llavís by Salvat-Papasseit with wooden covers. When they gave it to Cendrós-padre-buelo, he said: “He was the only person in the world who had two of this edition; now I will be the only person who will have three".
