This list, my own creation in no particular order, names 50 of the best books about the South American continent. Some titles date back to the time of conquest, while others were written this year. With the holiday shopping season among us, don’t forget that a book is a great gift idea, especially for a Latin America guru or wannabe. Some of the books are out of print or hard to find, though the majority are available through Amazon and are on Kindle (just click on the link).

1. In Patagoniaby Bruce Chatwin
2. Cloud Forest by Peter Matthiessen
3. Fruit Palace by Charles Nicholl
4. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
5. The Poetry of Pablo Neruda by Pablo Neruda
6. The Conquest of the Incas by John Hemming
7. Papillon by Henri Charriere
8. The White Rock by Hugh Thomson
9. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann
10. Tree of Rivers: The Story of the Amazon by John Hemming
11. Collected Fictionss by Jorge Luis Borges
12. Selected Non-Fictionsn by Jorge Luis Borges
13. The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin
14. A Guide to the Birds of Colombiaby William Brown & Steven Hilty
15. Everything Lost: The Latin American Notebook of William S. Burroughs by William S. Burroughs
16. The Yage Letters Redux by William S. Burroughs
17. Lost City of the Incas by Hiram Bingham
18. The Art of Peruvian Cuisine by Tony Custer
19. Realm of the Incas by Max Milligan
20. Trail of Feathers: In Search of the Birdmen of Peru by Tahir Shah
21. Valverde’s Gold: In Search of the Last Great Inca Treasure by Mark Honigsbaum
22. My Invented Country: A Memoir by Isabel Allende
23. Travels in a Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile by Sarah Wheeler
24. The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey by Che Guevara
25. Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft by Thor Heyerdahl
26. At Play in the Fields of the Lord by Peter Matthiessen
27. The News from Paraguay: A Novel by Lily Tuck
28. Mad white giant: A journey to the heart of the Amazon jungle by Benedict Allen
29. Tristes Tropiques by Claude Lévi-Strauss
30. Galapagos: Preserving Darwin’s Legacy by Tui Le Roy & Sarah Darwin
31. Keep the River on Your Right by Tobias Schneebaum
32. The Panama Hat Trail by Tom Miller
33. The Last Days of the Incas by Kim Macquarrie
34. The Bridge of San Luis Rey: A Novel by Thornton Wilder
35. The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas by Paul Theroux
36. Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano
37. The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability by Peter Kornbluh
38. Evita: The Real Life of Eva Peron by Nicholas Fraser & Marysa Navarro
39. Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City By Greg Grandin
40. The History Of The Conquest Of Peru by William H. Prescott
41. Birds of Peru (Princeton Field Guides) by Thomas S. Schulenberg, Douglas F. Stotz, Daniel F. Lane, and John P. O’Neill
42. Lost City Radio: A Novel (P.S.) by Daniel Alarcon
43. Ayahuasca Visions by Pablo Amaringo
44. Peru Handbook, 7th: Tread Your Own Path (Footprint Peru Handbook) by Ben Box
45. The Machu Picchu Guidebook: A Self-Guided Tour by Ruth M. Wright, Alfredo Valencia Zegarra, and Alfredo Valencia Zegarra
46. Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way by Francis Mallmann & Peter Kaminsky
47. The Dictator’s Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet by Heraldo Munoz
48. The Americas: A Hemispheric History by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
49. Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene
50. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

Nicholas Gill (470 Posts)

Writer and photographer Nicholas Gill is the editor/publisher of New World Review. He lives in Lima, Peru and Brooklyn, New York. His work has appeared in publications such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CondeNast Traveler, National Geographic Traveler, Afar, and Penthouse. Visit his personal website (nicholas-gill.com) for more information.