Life Embitters (Catalan: La vida amarga) is a 1967 book by the Spanish writer Josep Pla.

The content is a mix of anecdotes, travelogue, historical essays, journalism and memoir, with stories set in various parts of Europe which Pla visited.

[1] Kirkus Reviews wrote in 2015: "Moving around the capitals of Europe in a time of depression and unremitting melancholy, Pla often serves up small moments of perhaps unintentional brilliance[.]

Students of Orwell's journalism and of Kapuscinski will be glad to discover Pla, whose melancholy resembles that of his contemporary Stefan Zweig—and for some of the same reasons.

Euade continued: "In his piece on Italian painting, Pla urges his readers to throw away the 'pamphlets that only distort your vision – however handy or abstruse they might be… Set out to see things firsthand, be curious: that's the way to travel.'