Six months ago I came across an exceptional book.

Its title is What Brave Bulls Do, written by Rohase Piercy and beautifully illustrated by Nina Falaise. It was published in early 2011. Nominally a children’s book, but well worth everyone’s attention, it movingly reveals the distasteful realities of bullfighting. Those realities include mistreatment of the bulls to weaken them before the ‘fight’, smearing vaseline into the bulls’ eyes to blur their vision and shortening the horns to ensure that the bull misjudges the use of its only weapon.

I was so impressed that, very unusually for me, I took the trouble to post a review on Amazon – and I gave it 5 stars. I noticed that several other reviewers shared my opinion.

The author must have thought that her book stood a good chance of taking off and gaining the success it deserved – but then disaster struck. Just a few weeks after the book was published, the publisher ceased trading.

That must have been a really sickening blow, but there appears to have been some developments that I really do not understand.  I see on Amazon that what looks like a second edition has appeared with a quoted publication date of July. My first reaction was that Rohase Piercy’s excellent book must have been picked up by another publisher and I was delighted to see it. But on closer inspection I’m not so sure. No publisher is identified and the only seller is quoting £28.72 plus postage!!!! Something weird is going on.

It just goes to show that in the current economic climate authors can jump through all the hoops involved in getting a book published, but still have their aspirations dashed. I hope that in this case Rohase emerges with a successful book.

In the meantime, and perhaps more importantly, Catalonia has banned bullfighting with effect from January 2012. It is the first mainland area of Spain to do so.