Miranda France is a travel writer-cum-literary critic with an unsparingly truthful and delightfully absurd voice....Her new book tells us about Spain by juxtaposing Cervantes`s life and his character`s adventures with the author`s own delightful anecdotes, incomparable characters, and insightful observations. At the heart of Miranda France`s utterly engaging book are two very different visits to Spain, set ten years apart. In 1987, the author spent her student year in Madrid--when post-Franco ebullience was at its height and pornography and soft drugs were legalized, along with divorce, party-affiliation, and kissing in the street. a return trip to central Spain, taken in 1998, shows France that much has changed in the country, but also that much has endured. An incomparable cast of real-life characters, along with France`s compelling investigations of the world`s first novel, Cervantes`s DON QUIXOTE--published in 1605 and, the author finds out, the most translated book after the Bible--reveal much about the identity of modern Spain and its people.