Books Recs on Latin America

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Big topic I know, but I have decided that, after Eurasia, I should set my travel/language/reading sites on LatAm. Any recs? Generally speaking, politics, history, crime, maybe fiction.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

I don’t know if this is per se the best recommendation, but Days and Nights of Love and War, by Eduardo Galeano, was what got me as into Latin America as I am today. Series of vignettes and reflections from his time in exile in the 60s and 70s. In terms of fiction, you absolutely must read One Hundred Years of Solitude.

[Mr. Smith]

If you want immersion, just look into most things Southwestern or Floridian.

[vitoNova]

I would think the most obvious answer is The Motorcycle Diaries.

While I never read the book, we watched the film in a Latin American Relations class in college. 

10/10

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I would think the most obvious answer is The Motorcycle Diaries.

This looks dope.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I don’t know if this is per se the best recommendation, but Days and Nights of Love and War, by Eduardo Galeano, was what got me as into Latin America as I am today. Series of vignettes and reflections from his time in exile in the 60s and 70s. In terms of fiction, you absolutely must read One Hundred Years of Solitude.

These also both look promising, thanks.

[Mexican Wolf]

I'd suggest fiction-wise Love in the Time of Cholera and Kiss of the Spider Woman.

[vitoNova]

Kiss of the Spider Woman.

RIP William Hurt and M. Bison. 

The movie adaptation is actually on my bucket list. 

[Benjamin Frank]

My father and I have an extensive collection of books, but the only book I can find on Modern Latin America anyway (which I've never read, and I don't think I'd recommend it, but for those who like him:

Latin America: From Colonization to Globalization, Noam Chomsky in conversation with Heinz Dieterich

[MT Treasurer]

I highly recommend starting with bilingual books — short fiction, horror stories, etc. There is a rich selection of those, including for beginners. You can’t overemphasize the value of a bilingual approach to a foreign language, and it’s often lost even on educators.

Aside from that, I’ve always been a fan of philosophical treatises. (One of my favorites is The Revolt of the Masses [1929] by José Ortega y Gasset — I’m nearly done with it and am probably going to complete it this week. Use one color for content and another one for common vocabulary/idiomatic expressions/linking words/grammatical observations etc.).

Regardless, for #2 it’s really important that you choose a topic which interests you.

[wnwnwn]

Why books?
Ask me things

Well, I can recomend you 'Historia de la Corrupción en el Peru' and maybe 'Los Dueños del Peru'.

[Cassius]

Hugh Thomas wrote a number of books on Latin America, including a War & Peace length doorstop (1,500 pages plus at initial publication, and that was in 1971) on the history of Cuba. An excellent recent read for me was Fernando Cervantes’ Conquistadores: A New History, covering the first fifty years or so of the Spanish exploration and conquest of the Americas.