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