Books

Here is list of books related to our travels.  It includes my own, incomplete book list and other recommended by friends.  Hopefully I will eventually recover the first part of my list with many Chilean authors on my back-up drive soon!

Books related to South America

Bruce Chatwin, In Patagonia

Chatwin, the center of a South American Universe. Read Spring 2014.

Tim Cahill, Road Fever. 

Suggested by Sam Jackson, then others.  Tim Cahill and Garry Sowerby attempt to se the record for the fastest drive from Ushuaia to Alaska.  Terrifying, uproarious, delightful.  Read spring 2014

Charles C Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus


Fascinating insights into the corrected history of North and South America.  Read Sept 2014

Charles C Mann, 1493: Discovering he New World Columbus Created

On my list.

Peter Mattheissen, At Play in the Fields of the Lord

A south American Heart of Darkness. Spring 2014

Juan Gabriel Vasquez, The Sound of Things Falling


Liked this well enough the first time, fell in love on the second reading.  Spring 2014

Dervla Murphy, Eight Feet in the Andes


Read many years ago, to read again

Sara Wheeler, Travels in a Thin Country


Travels of an English woman in Chile.  Alternatingly frustrating and enchanting.  Read 2012

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The General in His Labarynth

A dying Bolivar travels north through Colombia to die in Cartagena.  Very dissatisfying, though if I had waited to know Colombia before reading it, I thing I would have felt differently.




Adam Feinstein, Pablo Neruda, a passion for life

Lovely biography.  I would read anything by this guy.Read 2013

Second-hand book recommendations:

Ruth Jarvis

The Blue Hour

Alonso Cueto

Contemporary novel about a Lima lawyer who discovers his father was part of the brutal suppression of Shining Path.

The Secret in their Eyes

Eduardo Sachieri (El Secreto en sus Ojos)

Poignant character-driven Buenos Aires detective story set in the 1960s and exposes the self-serving establishment.

State of Wonder

Anne Patchett

Marvellous and mad contemporary, feminist, sci-fi re-rendering of Heart of Darknesss set in Amazonia.

The White Rock

Hugh Thomson

Accessible, enjoyable and credible introduction to the ancient sites of Peru.

All the greats, of course, not that I've read enough of them. Borgia, Marques, Coelho, Allende, Vargas Llosa, Neruda (particularly Canto General, history of South America from a non-European perspective, in verse).

Will Fulford-Jones

 Eduardo Galeano - Open Veins of Latin America

It's quite old now (1973) and it's as much a polemic as a piece of history, but this is a pretty damning narrative about US influence shaping the history of Latin America. Hugo Chavez gave a copy to Barack Obama. We bought this on paper as we couldn't find it for Nook - but we then found a pdf copy, which is attached.

Greg Grandin - Empire's Workshop

Much more recent than the Galeano book, but with a similar theme - basically, US imperialism in Latin America. It's a bit dry but worth reading. Grandin has also written a gigantic book, livelier but much longer, called Fordlandia, about Henry Ford's attempt to build a community in Amazonian Brazil.

John McPhee - Looking for a Ship

Only peripherally related to South America, but a lovely, elegant book about a journey on a ship. (On that subject, our friend is Rose George and her much more recent book on shipping is called Deep Sea and Foreign Going.)

Tom Feiling - Short Walks from Bogotá

Written two years ago and mostly a really insightful book about modern-day Colombia, though his impressions are generally a bit more negative than ours. His earlier book is a history of the cocaine industry, but neither of us has read it.

Mark Bowden - Killing Pablo

Pablo as in Medellín drug baron Pablo Escobar. Got this, and it's meant to be great, but haven't read it yet.

John Gimlette - Wild Coast

A fascinating little book about Guyana, French Guiana and Suriname... But not fascinating enough for us to go there.

Fernando Rosas - A Brief History of Peru

We bought this in Peru on paper, keen to read a quick and basic history of the country. This does the job pretty well, though the translation is a bit sloppy.

Peter Matthiessen - The Cloud Forest

Beautifully written travelogue, mostly through Peru but also taking in other parts of the Andes. Just a wonderful book.

Ariel Dorfman - Desert Memories

I wish we'd known about this book, focused on the Atacama and northern Chile, when we were there. He's also written a book about Pinochet, which we haven't read.